hence at ten in the morning. Visitation from three to five and seven to nine the day before the funeral. Any other details, such as the service and the clergyman, McGovern would handle.
Barbara thanked Marilyn. She hadn’t done much, but she was the only one who’d bothered to call, let alone show up to help.
Barbara drove toward their-no, scratch that-
She’d have to get used to being single again. Now that she considered it, she thought it might be fun. With the car in gear, her mind shifted into neutral. In an abstract state, Barbara once again fixated on those notes she’d so cleverly slipped to the four potential fathers.
Besides revealing her pregnant condition and the charge of responsibility to each, she’d mentioned Al. What she’d meant by that was vague, even in her own mind.
What if Al hadn’t been killed?
She would have had her baby. That was a given. Outside of a spontaneous miscarriage, there was no way in the world she would have an abortion. Never again would she gaze at a destroyed baby that she had carried.
Well, then, what?
Al would have done everything short of hiring a skywriter to tell the world-or that part of the world that might be concerned-that he was not, could not be, the father of this child.
Then what? Somewhere, the baby had to have a father. Not four.
Tom, Jack, Lou, and Martin-each individually knew full well that he could be the missing piece. If she had been successful in her careful scheme, none of them knew about the other three.
At that point, she might have selected one and named him as father. The other three would think Christmas had come early.
And which one would she pick?
That didn’t require much thought. She certainly would have selected Tom Adams. Not only was he by far the wealthiest, he was also single-and with a very demanding conscience.
She could have divorced Al. Or have let him divorce her. It made little difference.
On top of that, although she wasn’t entirely clear on this, there was something in Catholic Church law about annulments. As she understood it, this was Catholicism’s version of civil divorce. The big thing about it was that it cleared the way for a Catholic to. marry again in the Church.
She knew that Tom Adams had gotten not only a divorce from that bitch he’d married, he also had gotten an annulment. Which freed him.
What about her?
If memory served, she thought Tom Adams had said something about the various reasons one could be granted an annulment. Yes, she thought, parenthetically, the lesson had been delivered one time by Tom as postcoital pillow talk. And one of those reasons had to do with children: something about if one married partner refuses to let the other have a child … that, or something very much like that, is grounds for the declaration of nullity.
And that would certainly have applied to her and Al.
That meant that she would have been free in Church law as well as civil law to marry again. The way would have been clear for her marriage to Tom Adams. And wouldn’t that have been sweet!
Yes, had Al lived, that would have been the scenario.
But Al was gone.’
Now what?
She hoped she wasn’t getting greedy, but …
Al was gone. Evidently it would take time to get used to that. But it wasn’t painful.
So now, when her baby came, Al would not be around to wash his hands of the child.
However, each of the four had been told he was the father: Her notes had delivered the glad tidings.
With Al out of the way, Barbara could-with four important exceptions-let the world believe that the late dearly departed Allan Ulrich did not live to see his son or daughter. Sad.
But a happy momma.
Why not? With four wealthy men supporting one sorry widow and one lonely child.
She was smiling. She’d have to be careful of that. She was, after all, a devastated young woman whose mate had been taken from her. His death was terribly premature and she would miss him more than a person could bear.
It would be difficult to project this pitiful state. It called for an award-winning performance. Because once she carried it off Barbara was in a win/win situation.
There was no way she could lose.
Thirteen
Father Tully looked forward to a pleasant evening.
He would walk the few blocks from St. Joseph’s rectory to police headquarters, where at four-thirty this afternoon he was to meet his brother’s superior officer, Inspector Walter Koznicki.
The inspector was to give the priest a tour of headquarters, during which they would get to know each other. Then at about six, they would be joined by Alonzo and Anne Marie Tully and they would all dine at a downtown restaurant.
From what he’d seen of downtown Detroit at the end of the business day, Father Tully felt justified in being a bit apprehensive. His consolation was that two of their party would be wearing guns.
Actually, an abnormal fear of the city was really uncalled for. It was merely his way of entertaining himself as he walked.
The priest was not afraid of Detroit-day or night-though he preferred not to hang around alone on a dark corner of the city. And he would have been happier if no one carried a gun.
Headquarters-1300 Beaubien-was an impressive structure. A sizable block of brick and marble, its statement was that it had been here a while and it would stand for the foreseeable future.
He climbed the steps to the lobby and entered an anthill of uniformed police and others whose casual familiarity with the place and each other indicated they were plainclothes officers.
He received many cordial nods as he made his way to the elevator. This he attributed to his clerical collar. So far in Detroit, he had worn clericals more often in a few days than he would in his Dallas parish in a month. But the man for whom he was pinch-hitting seemed to favor the uniform. It was far easier, he admitted, to follow suit … an unintentional pun.
The elevator introduced him to the fifth floor; signs directed him to the Homicide Division, where a helpful officer ushered him to the inspector’s office.
He could tell that Inspector Koznicki’s smile of welcome was genuine. The priest had volumes of experience with plastic smiles. This was not one of them. Koznicki was sincerely happy to welcome the brother of his favorite officer. The happiness was multiplied since the visitor was a priest. Inspector Koznicki was very much a practicing Catholic.
They sat across the desk from each other.
The setting put Father Tully in mind of
It was an ordinary office with ordinary furnishings. But the man whose office it was seemed many times too big for it.
Koznicki was not huge in a freakish way. He was-in the same sense as John Wayne-larger than life. And, at least in these circumstances, as friendly as a St. Bernard.
After opening pleasantries, the priest detailed his relationship to his newfound relative. The inspector was impressed with their unusual discovery of each other after so many years. And how vastly different were their backgrounds, given each had the same father.
The inspector explained that since several matters demanded his immediate attention he would have one of his officers show Father Tully around.
The priest marveled at how he was attracting “B” level guides. First a bank officer had been detailed by Tom
