Blood Ties (9 page)

“Then your mother's maiden name was Dolan.”

“Yes. Sheila Dolan.”

“My dear, we're practically related.”

Bernard spoke as if for the first time. “Ah, I knew it. An impediment. Consanguinity.”

“Sheila and I were at Barat together.”

“We all went to Barat, my mother, my grandmother,” Martha said. “I was the third generation.”

Martha supposed that horses were judged like this, by pedigree. The Caseys had welcomed her warmly when she arrived as a stranger, but now the atmosphere was cozy and familial, and their reaction to Bernard's remark indicated that his parents knew which way the wind blew and, having met her, approved.

When they said good-bye, Mrs. Casey held Martha's hand in both of hers and smiled a benediction on her. Mr. Casey cleared his throat and kissed her cheek. Then she was in the car beside Bernard, and they set off down the long driveway.

“Bravo, Martha. You were a triumph.”

“I like them.”

“More important, they like you.”

They went to see the Cubs—a victory, but either way, victory or defeat, would have been fine with the festive fans. Bernard was ebullient and drank too much beer and insisted on thrusting hot dogs and frosty malts and bags of peanuts on her.

“Stop! You'll have to roll me out of here.”

Sammy Sosa hit a long home run over the left field fence with everyone in the park on their feet and yelling. As the excitement died down, Bernard turned and kissed her on the mouth.

“You'll owe me one for every home run.”

“What about triples?”

“You get to kiss me.”

She kissed him then and there, and they sat, their shoulders leaning against one another, alone in the crowd, in love. It was only later, in her apartment, alone at last, that Martha acknowledged that the visit to the Caseys had been a depressing experience.

It was as obvious as could be that their approval of her was derived from her grandparents and parents. Martha they knew not at all, but she came recommended by her antecedents, and that explained the warmth of the welcome and the tenderness of the departure. What would they have said if she had told them the Lynches adopted her, that no Dolan blood ran in her veins? That would have altered the whole visit. She could just keep quiet about it, of course. Some of the sheen of the Dolans and Lynches would still attach to her. After all, they had raised her, and they had sent her to Barat. Short of a blood test, no one would know she was anything other than she seemed to be. No doubt, eventually, it would come out, but that could be years from now, when it wouldn't matter. By then, she would have been accepted for herself, not her supposed relatives. She went to bed resolved to say nothing.

She woke in the morning to find that her resolution had deserted her. She couldn't do that to Bernard. Forget about his family. This was between the two of them. He knew who he was, and her origins were obscure. She simply had to bring it up with her mother again. Now her mother would see how important it was that Martha learn who her real parents were.

10

Before he left the alumni center, Cy Horvath learned the location of Professor Lorenzo's campus office, but when he went out to his car he was undecided whether to call on the professor in his office or on his wife at their home. The two were equidistant from where he was parked, so the matter could not be decided on the basis of convenience. Of course, a good part of his hesitation arose from the thought that he was on a wild goose chase. So he called in, hopeful that a basement full of bodies had been discovered or that some madman at the mall randomly shooting shoppers would provide an excuse to use his time more profitably.

“Nothing much, Cy,” Phil Keegan said. “Where are you?”

“Evanston.”

“What for?”

“A funeral of sorts.”

“Anyone I know?”

“I didn't know the man myself.”

“My God, Cy, only the Irish make a point of attending any funeral going.”

“I didn't see you there.”

“I'm going out to St. Hilary's.”

“A funeral?”

“To see Father Dowling.”

“Give him my blessing.”

He got out of the car, locked it, and, since he was facing that way, went to call on Professor Lorenzo in his office.

“Lieutenant Horvath?” The departmental secretary stared at him.

“That's right.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“Is he in?”

A bearded face appeared from a doorway down the hall. “Did I hear my name taken in vain?”

“There's a lieutenant to see you.”

“Finally! My application for West Point has been approved.”

“Are you Professor Lorenzo?”

“Come on in.”

Cy felt that he had entered Father Dowling's study, only worse. All four walls were bookshelves, save for a narrow window that was cranked open. On its sill was a stack of books; there were books on the floor, books on the little table next to the easy chair Cy was shown to, books and papers all over the desk. All it lacked was the smell of tobacco.

Lorenzo closed the door. “I only leave it open when girls visit.”

Cy nodded. “Nice place.”

Lorenzo sat behind his desk, looking around. “It is, isn't it? I have been in this office over twenty years.”

“It looks lived in. You teach philosophy?”

“Is this an arrest?” Large teeth emerged from the facial hair when he smiled. “They executed Socrates, of course. Corrupting youth, they called it. My ambitions are not so high. Lieutenant of what?”

Cy handed Lorenzo his identification. He studied it. “Fox River?”

“I came over for the memorial for Nathaniel Fleck.”

“I went myself. Once there would have been a religious ceremony of some kind. Now there are only eulogies and empty consolation. ‘He will be missed.'” That had been a recurrent phrase in the tributes.

“He wasn't missed on a Fox River street.”

“Tell me about that.”

“There's not much to tell. I'm investigating it.”

“Hence your presence at his memorial.”

“I dropped by the alumni center.”

“You went there?”

Cy ignored that. “I am trying to figure out why the man was here. He lived in California. Everyone at the memorial seemed surprised that he had been in the Chicago area.”

“And what did you learn?”

“He was trying to locate your wife.”

Lorenzo let out a soundless whistle. Then he said, “They were classmates.”

“I wondered if he had looked her up.”

“Yet you came to me.”

“I was on campus. Of course, I'll want to talk to your wife. Did he find her?”

Another soundless whistle. “Why don't we go somewhere for a beer?”

*   *   *

It was called a pub and was a large room with wooden tables and comfortable chairs. Lorenzo brought a pitcher of beer to the table and filled Cy's glass, then his own. The place was half full of students but not too noisy. Lorenzo looked around. “The life of the mind.” He lifted his glass. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

But he did not look cheerful when he put down his glass and leaned toward Cy. “I am going to make it unnecessary that you talk to my wife. She and Fleck were lovers while they were students. She became pregnant. He abandoned her. After all these years, he decided to come back and find out if she had had the baby.”

“Why?”

“He wanted to be a father. Or to find out if he had been one all along.”

“What did she tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“And that was that?”

“He wrote her a letter. She burned it.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No.”

Cy finished his glass, and Lorenzo refilled it.

“How exactly did he die?” Lorenzo asked.

“It seemed a hit-and-run at first.”

“Wasn't it?”

“All that's clear is that a car jumped the curb, hit him glancingly, and sent him through a store window. A piece of glass went through his throat. He bled to death right there.”

“So what are you investigating?”

“I wish I knew.”

Lorenzo sat back. “There's no need to talk to my wife, then, is there?”

“Does she drive an SUV?”

“What's that?”

“What does she drive?”

“She doesn't. We have a car, but we seldom use it. I walk to campus. Everything we need is close by.”

“But you have a car?”

“Of sorts. At the moment it's in the garage for repairs.”

Cy took out his notebook and looked at Lorenzo.

“You want the name of the garage?”

“Yes.”

“My God, do you actually think she went after him with a car?”

“I don't think. I'm a cop, not a philosopher.”

“Quit bragging. I took the car in a week ago.”

Cy thought about it. “I'll check it out anyway.”

“After you do, there'll be no reason to bother my wife.”

“I'll check it out.”

The garage was attached to a filling station. The mechanic's name was Pierce. He looked at Cy's ID, looked at Cy, then said, “Lorenzo. I haven't gotten around to it yet. They said there was no rush.”

“Can I see it?”

There were several cars parked along the fence that bordered the station. Pierce took him to a vehicle in need of a wash.

“What kind of car is this?”

“A Neon.” Pierce made a face.

“Never heard of it.”

“They're made out near Rockford.”

“What's it in for?”

“Nothing special. A general tune-up.”

Cy looked the car over. It certainly bore no resemblance to an SUV. There were no dents, at least of recent origin. Those there were were ancient, covered with dust.

Pierce said, “People just put gas in their cars and expect them to run like watches.”

Cy thanked him and left. Driving back to Fox River, he tried to put the whole thing out of his mind. He might have asked Pierce if either of the Lorenzos could have driven the car off his lot while it was waiting for its tune-up, but what was the point? Perhaps he should have talked with Lorenzo's wife, Madeline. As Cy had told the bearded professor, he was not a philosopher, but it is not always easy to keep long thoughts at bay. Imagine having fathered a child and, unable to forget it, even years later, wondering if the child had even been born, if it had been a boy or girl, if it was still alive. Nathaniel Fleck had apparently tried to find the answers to those questions, and now he was dead. These two things seemed connected, but were they? A detective looks for connections between events, but sometimes the only connection is accidental. Had some motorist momentarily lost control of his car, jumped the curb, and somehow caused Fleck to be propelled through that store window to his death? The driver might not even have realized what he had done, to the degree that he had done it, and sped off down the street. All that was possible. But Cy found little comfort in the thought, and he brooded.

11

Sheila listened to Martha's description of her visit to the Casey home in Libertyville, the phone pressed close to her ear, eyes shut, dreading what was coming.

“All they talked about was you and Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa. They were so glad to learn who I was.”

“Did you like them?”

“Oh, yes.”

“So things are serious between you and Bernard.”

“Didn't you like him?”

“We both did.”

“Do you remember her? She said she knew you in college.”

“I knew her, of course, but we weren't friends.”

Silence on the line. Now it would come again, the awful question. It was Martha's love for Bernard that fueled her curiosity, but if it hadn't been Bernard Casey it would have been someone else wanting to marry her and stirring up this desire to know who her real parents were. Real. So small a word could be a dagger in the breast.

“Mom, I felt like an impostor.”

“That's nonsense.”

“They breed horses. They think in terms of bloodlines.”

“You are not a horse, sweetheart.”

“Mom, I have to know.”

“No, you don't. Martha, it hasn't mattered all these years and it doesn't matter now.”

“Did you know her?”

Sheila remembered the lovely girl at the Women's Care Center; she remembered holding her in her arms as they wept. How much like her Martha was. She realized that now as she never had before. When the girl's time came, she was wheeled away, Henry Dolan on one side of her, George on the other, the obstetrician at the foot. An hour later, Martha was put in Sheila's arms, George appeared, and they drove home with their daughter. Oh, the joy they had felt. How cruel it seemed that the memory should now be so threatening.

“Yes, I knew her. Getting to know her was part of it.”

“What was she like?”

“You could be her twin.”

“Really!” The delight in Martha's voice turned the knife in Sheila's breast. “Mom, I'm coming home tonight, okay?”

“For dinner?”

“If I may.”

“Martha, this is your home.”

After she hung up, Sheila tried to cry but couldn't. She seemed far beyond tears. Martha's renewed insistence seemed to launch her into some point in space where nothing was familiar, all was cold and unrelated.
I am her real mother,
Sheila thought fiercely. What is a real mother but the woman who has raised you from an infant, been with you through all the little crises of life, been at your side forever? She almost hated the thought of that lovely girl at the Women's Center, but that would have been like hating Martha.

“We could tell her.”

“George!”

“What possible difference can it make now?”

“None. That is the point. Who knows where she is or what she has become? And, George, think of her. Do you suppose she would want this all dredged up now? I would imagine she has spent a lifetime putting this out of her mind. That is what we enabled her to do. Think what it would do to her to have Martha show up on her doorstep, two strangers looking at one another. That would be cruel. We can't do it.”