The Widow's Mate Read Free Page A

funeral.”
    Luke shrugged his shoulders. “He was always putting ideas into Wally’s head. Things might have been different if those two hadn’t known one another.”
    Luke seemed to be suggesting that Packer had put the idea of giving up the family business into Wallace’s head.
    â€œCome to the house, Amos.”
    There were mountains of catered food, as well as Jameson’s for the Irish, who knew what a funeral was for.
    Melissa did not stay long and was soon convoyed away by classmates from Barat. Luke just shook his head when Amos produced the wedding ring. Amos put it back in his pocket and later into his office safe. Eventually, he was sure, Melissa would want to have it.
    But the transfer had never been made. From time to time, Amos noticed the sealed envelope in his safe marked FLANAGAN WEDDING RING . Once he had taken it back to his desk, opened the envelope, and held the ring up to the light. That was when he noticed the legend on the outer surface of the ring. TILL DEATH DO US PART .
    *   *   *
    Amos shifted on his knees and managed to drive away these memories and attend to Father Dowling’s noon Mass. Afterward, he returned with Roger Dowling to the rectory, where Marie first served an avocado salad that elicited Amos’s praise.
    â€œAvocado as in lawyer?” Father Dowling said. “This must be one of Marie’s theme luncheons.”
    â€œI hope not,” Amos said when the salad was followed by an omelet that melted on the tongue. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. Is that another reference to my law practice?”
    Marie ignored this, but she tuned in when Amos mentioned having seen Melissa Flanagan at the noon Mass.
    â€œShe’s a frequent presence at the center,” Marie said.
    â€œAt her age?”
    â€œYou’d be surprised.” Marie did not say how.
    Father Dowling said, “She tells me she has been traveling a lot and now wants to settle down.”
    â€œThe Flanagans never really left the parish,” Marie said.
    â€œShe’s a widow, isn’t she?” Father Dowling asked.
    â€œYes.” Amos let it go at that. “Marie, you deserve a cordon bleu. ”
    â€œTo go with her black belt?”
    After lunch, Amos called his driver. Father Dowling came outside with him, and they waited for his car. On the playground, groups of the elderly were visible. It was difficult to think of Melissa Flanagan in such a setting.

3
    Father Dowling sometimes thought that his friend Captain Phil Keegan regarded the baseball season as the secular equivalent of the liturgical year’s Ordinary Time. Several times a week now, Phil came to the rectory to follow the fortunes of the Cubs. Even the smallness of Father Dowling’s television screen no longer drew his complaints, but then baseball is a game that does not wholly absorb the attention of viewers. These were the occasions when the pastor of St. Hilary’s was made privy to the current activities of the homicide division of the Fox River police, of which Phil was the head. It seemed the Pianone family was trying to buy into Flanagan Concrete.
    â€œHow does that concern your department?”
    â€œIt doesn’t, but old Luke Flanagan complained to Robertson about it,” Phil growled. Robertson, the chief of police, was a creature of the Pianones, whose influence in Fox River was pervasive.
    â€œHasn’t Luke retired?”
    â€œHis nephew Frank Looney took over some years ago. Luke might have been waiting for definitive news of what happened to his son. I suspect the Pianones made Frank Looney an offer he can’t refuse.”
    Whatever the tainted sources of their money, the Pianones were interested in concealing it with legitimate investments.
    â€œThey already have half the unions. I suppose that’s their wedge, the drivers.”
    â€œIs that a crime?”
    Another growl. “Nothing will stay