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| FICTION |
GONE WITH THE HEIR
A Father Dowling Mystery
by Ralph McInerny
_______________ 1 _______________
“A private detective,” Father Dowling repeated, unable to conceal his surprise.
The young woman flashed what was once called an Ipana smile. “It’s really a very dull job, whatever you’ve read.”
His visitor had not shut the door of his study completely, and Father Dowling heard Marie Murkin stirring in the hallway outside.
“Could you shut the door all the way, Miss . . . ?”
“Neigh. And not as in horse.”
“In French it would be nose.”
“That’s more like it.”
These pleasantries completed, Miss Neigh went right to the point. She had been hired to locate a missing person. An elderly man named Winkle.
“Tom Winkle?”
“I have learned that he is a regular at your senior center. I thought I should come to you first. I don’t wish to alarm him.”
“I never thought of Tom as missing.”
“Missing isn’t quite accurate. The estate of a distant relative of his wishes to locate him. He is about to come into a large sum of money.”
“Well.”
Miss Neigh represented the estate of one Mildred Perth of Mishawaka, Indiana, a second cousin of Tom Winkle, it seemed. The estate had thus far been unsuccessful in finding any surviving relatives of the late Mildred Perth, and now Tom Winkle had emerged as the beneficiary of her fortune.
“Fortune?”
“It comes to something like two million dollars.”
Father Dowling sat back in his chair. “I am glad you came to me first. I can’t imagine what Tom’s reaction to such news might be.”
Tom Winkle was in his mid-seventies, tall, lean, stooped, with wisps of hair on his high domed head. A widower, he had for months resisted the innocent blandishments of the merry widows at the center, but of late he had been much in the company of Jennifer Rumsey, a frail and lovely woman a few years younger than Tom who, as Marie had put it, clung like cloth. Tom, in the manner of the male, became the cock of the walk under such attention. This had caused grumbling and resentment among others who had vied for Jennifer’s attention, not least Gregory Murray, a retired dentist who looked as if he were about to tell his interlocutor to open wider.
“There are no other possible heirs?”
“If there are, they are more difficult to find than Thomas Winkle was.”
“But there could be some?”
Miss Neigh shook her head. “I am professionally certain there are none.”
“So what do you suggest we do?”
“Would it be possible to have Tom come here? I wouldn’t want to give him this news when he is surrounded by others.”
This was what Father Dowling had hoped. He could imagine the buzz at the senior center if it were learned there was a millionaire in their midst. He picked up the phone and dialed Edith Hospers’ number at the school that had been converted into a center for the seniors of the parish.
“Father,” Edith said breathlessly, when finally she answered the phone. “I just ran upstairs to call you. Can you come over here immediately?”
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s Tom Winkle. Please hurry. And bring the sacred oils.”
_______________ 2 _______________
Tom Winkle sat immobile in a chair in the former gym, a crescent of elderly people at a respectful distance from him. It took but a moment for Father Dowling to determine that Tom had gone to that bourne from which no traveler returns. But he gave him conditional absolution and anointed him. Jennifer Rumsey removed the tennis shoes from Tom’s feet so that Father Dowling could anoint them as well.
“I remember it from Maurice.” Maurice was the late Mr. Rumsey.
“When did it happen?”
A chorus of voices began, with a variety of accounts of what had happened and when. Meanwhile, the ambulance arrived and a hush fell over the seniors. The sound of a siren seemed more a reminder of mortality than what had just happened to Tom Winkle. Their attention was riveted on the paramedics, the lifting of the body onto the stretcher and carrying it outside to their now silent vehicle, though a red flashing light still sent its signals to the four points of the compass. Jennifer Rumsey tried to board the ambulance, but was turned away.
“I went with Maurice,” she said, but no one was listening. She turned to Father Dowling. “Did you meet his nephew?”
“His nephew?”
“They had such a nice talk. You never know, do you, Father?”
Upstairs in Edna Hospers’ office, Father Dowling discussed this latest excitement. “That was a dead millionaire they just carried away, Edna.”
“What?”
He told her of the visit of Miss Neigh and of her extraordinary news.
“I just rushed over here without so much as a word to her.”
“There was someone here to see Tom this morning. A man.”
“Jennifer Rumsey said his nephew was here.”
“He must have left just before...”
“Did you talk with him?”
“He came up here and asked me if he could see Thomas Winkle.”
“Did he say why?”
“He said that he and Tom might be relatives.”
_______________ 3 _______________
Over the next twenty-four hours, Father Dowling learned a number of things that would have provided profitable points for meditation. There was no Mildred Perth in Mishawaka, Indiana, alive or dead. Phil Keegan had someone check out a Miss Neigh, but without result.
“She got a first name, Roger?”
“I didn’t ask her.”
“Probably Wini,” Marie said. The housekeeper’s position was that, if she had been appropriately consulted, she would have learned that the so-called Miss Neigh was up to no good.
“What do you think, Roger?” Phil said. “She distracts you and her partner goes to Tom Winkle.”
Marie sighed. “He probably died from excitement if he was told a similar story. Why do people do these things?”
“It may be true,” Phil said. “Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Somewhere there is a fortune old Winkle was heir to.”
Such remarks prompted Father Dowling to call Dr. Pippen, the associate coroner.
“We still have the body,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll check and get back to you.”
And so she did, two hours later. “There are no marks on the body, no signs of violence. Preliminary tests show no noxious contents of the stomach.”
“So it was a natural death?”
“I didn’t say that. He might have died of a medical overdose. Did he have a heart condition?”
“Not that I know of.”
“His heart looks fine to me, for his age.”
“Edna may know if he was on any medicine.”
“Ask her if he took nitroglycerine.”
“Good Lord, isn’t that an explosive?”
“The properties of things often depend on their quantity.”
Father Dowling kept his own counsel about this. Dr. Roccasecca was at the wake. He had been Thomas Winkle’s physician.
“Did this come as a surprise to you, Doctor?”
Roccasecca’s luxuriant black brows rose above his rimless glasses. “I didn’t examine the body, but it sounds like a heart attack. But his heart was sound as a dollar.”
“Was he on any medicine?”
“Some stuff for his arthritis.”
“Glycerine?”
Roccasecca shook his silver head. “What for? His heart was in good shape.”
Amos Cadbury was Tom Winkle’s lawyer and was willing to discuss his client confidentially, professional to professional.
“Of course, this will become public knowledge once the will is probated. But that may take some time.”
“How so?”
“Tom left a pretty sizeable estate, Father.”
“It might have been more sizeable.”
“I don’t understand.”
Amos listened to the story of Miss Neigh’s visit, of the man who had visited Tom in the Center at about the same time.
“She said he could inherit a couple of million dollars.”
“Extraordinary. That is approximately the worth of Tom’s estate.”
Such coincidences did not engage the curiosity of Phil Keegan. He had seen Pippen’s report and found it too vague to think about. “I’m sure she could find something slightly funny about every death, Roger.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
But Father Dowling could not set the matter aside. Amos Cadbury at least shared his interest. Of course his task was to make a good faith search for heirs of Tom Winkle. Father Dowling was surprised to learn that the only beneficiary named in the will was the St. Hilary Senior Center.
“Did you make out the will, Amos?”
“I did. I asked at the time about heirs, and Tom said there were none. He was all alone now that his wife had died.”
“I wish you had talked to me about a bequest.”
“Father, I do what my clients ask. Up to a point, of course.”
“I don’t know what the center would do with millions of dollars.”
“I’m sure you could use it for general parish purposes as well.”
“Then I don’t know what the parish would do with millions of dollars.”
One of the luxuries of being assigned to an old established parish like St. Hilary was that all the major bills had long since been paid. The school would have been a white elephant, given the demographic shift to the suburbs, but converting it to a center where the seniors of the parish could congregate had been inspired. And it was not an expensive operation. Father Dowling was certain its success was due to its very modesty.
Amos Cadbury called a week later.
“Extraordinary thing, Father, given what you told me.”
Amos had initiated a search for any living relatives and potential heirs of Thomas Winkle.
“One may have turned up in Indiana. Mishawaka, Indiana.”
“Don’t tell me it’s someone named Perth.”
“No, not Perth. A couple named Ney.”
“Ney?”
“As in Napoleon’s marshal.”
Or horse. Or nose. Father Dowling looked thoughtfully out the window of his study. But Amos went on.
“I have asked the Neys to come see me.”
“And will they?”
“The prospect of money is a powerful lure. I wonder if you would mind being there?”
_______________ 4 _______________
On the day Jane and Harold Ney were to meet with Amos Cadbury, Father Dowling drove downtown with foreboding. What would be the private investigator’s reaction when she saw him again?
But the Jane Ney to whom Amos introduced him was not the woman who had come to the rectory in pursuit of Tom Winkle. She was middle-aged, composed — at least until she noticed Father Dowling’s Roman collar.
“We’re Methodists,” she said.
“Not very good ones,” her husband said, bringing a frown from his wife.
“And this is Harold Ney,” Amos said.
The two men shook hands, they all sat, and Amos began to speak of the last will and testament of Thomas Winkle. Jane Ney straightened when Amos mentioned the bequest to St. Hilary.
“He turned Catholic when he married,” she said, as if explaining this lapse from good sense.
“If there is any way to refuse that bequest, I will do it,” Father Dowling said.
“Why should you do that?”
“If Tom had known he had relatives still alive . . .”
“Oh, he must have known. The family stopped speaking to him after . . . after his marriage.”
“Do you have children?”
“One daughter.”
Whereupon Harold Ney pulled out his wallet and showed Father Dowling a photograph. It was the young woman who had called on him at the rectory.
“That’s Doris,” said the proud father.
The question remained whether there was anything that Father Dowling should do. It is not a crime to misrepresent oneself if no harm is done, and unless one linked Doris Ney’s calling at the rectory with the alleged cousin’s presence in the senior center, her call was at worst a prank. Had something untoward happened in the senior center? The amount of glycerine found in Tom Winkle could have brought on a heart attack. Dr. Roccasecca had not known that Winkle had gone to another doctor, a Dr. Pahi, who had prescribed glycerine for the symptoms Tom described. Tom would not have been the first patient who did not want his regular physician to know of a downturn in his health. If Tom had taken too much of the medicine, there was no way to associate this with the visit of the young man who had told Edna he might be a relative of Tom’s and had given Jennifer Rumsey the impression he was Tom’s nephew.
“Of course there’s a connection,” Marie said. “They were acting as a team.”
“To what end?”
“Tom’s.”
“And what advantage could that have for them?”
The question was disingenuous. He had not told Marie Murkin of the photograph Harold Ney had shown him of his daughter. It was indeed plausible that the supposed detective and the alleged nephew were acting as a team. The advantage of course was that Tom’s death hastened the entry of Jane and Harold Ney into the ranks of millionaires. But that required that they knew that Tom had a lot of money and that the Neys would inherit.
He was so caught up in these questions that he did not hear the doorbell ring. Marie looked into the study, her eyes wide, her mouth open, but silent. Finally she spoke.
“A Miss Doris Ney is here.”
_______________ 5 _______________
She remained standing even after Father Dowling had invited her to sit. “Father, I came here under false pretenses last time.” She inhaled. “I lied.”
“And now you’ve come back.”
She did sit now and gripped the edge of the desk. “I feel I may have done something far worse than lying.”
The pastor of St. Hilary, veteran of decades in the confessional, sat back. Penitents with a great burden want to tell it in their own way. As often as not this is unconsciously aimed at lessening their own guilt. But his visitor seemed intent on emphasizing what a dreadful thing she had done.
“Uncle Tom was a legend in the family. The turncoat who became a Catholic and was ostracized for it. Can you imagine what fascination that story held for me? Eventually, it brought me into the Church as well. I should have gone to him immediately, to my uncle, but I put it off. I didn’t want my parents to feel twice betrayed.”
The story about the inheritance in Mishawaka was the lie. “It was the reversal of the truth. It was my uncle who had the money, and whatever his perfidy in becoming Catholic, that was never forgotten. My father wanted us to reconcile with him. ‘He will outlive us both,’ my mother said. ‘Think of Doris,’ my father said. That set my own mind going, Father. I don’t deny it. And I made the mistake of telling Todd.”
“Todd?”
“Todd Fogle, my fiancé. At least he was.”
“Tell me about that.”
Thoughts about a fortune waiting in Fox River, Illinois might be half a joke in Mishawaka, Indiana, but Doris’s fiancé, Tod Fogle, insisted that she find out if it was true.
“How was I to do that? He said he’d work something out. Father, I didn’t want to admit it, but more and more Todd’s interest shifted from me to that money. I was simply a way to get that money. I don’t excuse myself. I agreed to go through with it. I was afraid that if I didn’t . . .”
Father Dowling nodded. “And he went to the school while you came here.”
“And frightened poor Uncle Tom to death. His telling Tom of me was meant to lessen the surprise.”
“Did he come with you this time?”
She shook her head, looked at her lap, lifted her chin but kept her eyes shut. “We’re no longer engaged.”
Todd’s interest in the prospect of inherited money had ultimately destroyed Doris’s interest in the prospect of marriage to him. It was Todd who had planned the trip, Todd who had suggested that she divert the priest while he found Tom in the senior center.
“He was anxious to find out how healthy he was.”
“And what did he find out?”
She was surprised. “But you know what happened.”
“They had a conversation first, didn’t they? What was it about?”
“He learned Tom had some sort of heart condition. Tom showed him the medicine. Todd still had it with him when we drove home.”
“You left suddenly.”
“He insisted on it.”
“Well, now you’re an heiress.”
“My parents, you mean. They are quite healthy and I wish them very long lives.”
“Tell me about your conversion to Catholicism.”
And she did. One thing led to another, and he gave her absolution for her sins, the exchange having been confession enough.
“Todd was going to become a Catholic. I suppose he won’t now.”
“Not because of a prospective marriage to Doris, anyway.”
Two days later, Marie announced the arrival of Todd Fogle.
_______________ 6 _______________
He had a handsome untrustworthy face and seemed certain he could convince anyone of anything.
“She’ll listen to you, Father. She really admires you.”
“And what is it I am to say?”
“She’s broken our engagement.”
“So she said.”
“But that’s silly. We’re meant for one another. I told her I’d become Catholic.”
“For her sake?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about the last moments of Tom Winkle.”
Fogle smiled, frowned, stirred in his chair, smiled again. “His last moments?”
“It seems you were the last one to talk with him. What did you talk about?”
“I was leading up to the subject of his relatives in Mishawaka. He didn’t know that Doris was a Catholic now, so I told him that.”
“And you talked about his health.”
“Yes.”
“He showed you his medicine?”
Todd Fogle nodded vigorously, as if Father Dowling had made a correct guess. “A little bottle, little pills. When he began to breathe heavily, he pointed at them. I put some in his mineral water and he got it down. Not that it helped.”
“How many pills did you give him?”
“It all happened so fast. I just spilled some in and gave him the water.”
No jury in the world would find Todd Fogle guilty. Father Dowling did not know if he could himself. Dr. Pippen remained Solomonian on the question. She shrugged her shoulders and ran a hand through her golden hair. “An overdose? Maybe.” But she wasn’t sure.
The conversation ended without Father Dowling’s agreement to call Doris. “Of course, if she came to me about it...”
“She will, Father. She will. I guarantee it.”
Father Dowling watched him go out to his car, a spring in his step. Perhaps a bright future with Doris still lay ahead of him. Doris and her uncle’s money.
“What a wonderful young man,” Marie Murkin said beside him.
“Marie, your endorsement is more than sufficient.”
No need to say for what. No woman could be reliable about such a rogue as that.
“Will they marry here at St. Hilary’s?”
“You mean Jennifer Rumsey and Gregory Murray?”
Marie gave him a look, but managed not to say what she doubtless would have liked to say about the fickle Jennifer and the susceptible Gregory.
“I mean that young man and the Ney girl.”
“Marie, I wouldn’t be surprised.”