The Widow's Mate Read Online Free

didn’t say. He was an altar boy here long ago.”
    Phil grunted. “Some altar boy.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?” Marie demanded.
    â€œHe’s had a checkered career. He spent a few years in Joliet at public expense.”
    Marie dropped into a chair, her mouth open. “No!”
    Phil was distracted by the game and leaned toward the set. A long fly to right nearly cleared the wall, but with a heroic effort the fielder climbed the ivy and caught the ball. Phil cheered. The no-hitter was intact. He reached for the beer that Marie still held, but she pulled it out of reach.
    â€œTell me about Gregory Packer,” she demanded.
    Phil seemed to have forgotten mentioning him, but Father Dowling was also waiting for him to speak. So Phil told them about the checkered career of Gregory Packer.
    â€œFive years ago or so, he had been tending bar on the Near North Side in Chicago, and his employer accused him of increasing his salary by failing to put money in the cash register. He had fiddled with the gizmo that prints out bills for the customers—pretty ingenious—but then something made the night manager keep an eye on him. Not only was he undercharging for drinks, he was pocketing other receipts. The manager told the owner, they concentrated a camera on him, and when the thing went to court the trial was over almost before it began.”
    â€œWhen did he get out?”
    â€œEarly this spring. Cy Horvath had known the guy years ago, saw an item in the Sun-Times, and looked into it. He noticed him here a week or so ago.”
    Marie had given Phil his beer during his recital, but now she looked as if she wanted to take it back. She stood. “Why are you hounding him?”
    â€œHounding him?”
    â€œOh,” Marie cried, throwing up her hands and hurrying back to her kitchen.
    Phil looked at Father Dowling. “What’s that all about?”
    â€œWell, she said he was an altar boy here.”
    â€œHe was, at the same time Cy was.”
    â€œCy was an altar boy?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œNo reason in the world. It’s just that I never heard it before.”
    â€œCy doesn’t talk about Cy much.”
    â€œYou said this embezzling took place in Chicago five years ago. Was that his first scrape with the law?”
    â€œWell, it was his first conviction. He had been in the navy and was discharged in San Diego and stayed on. Women liked him, and he seems to have been a kind of gigolo. But then a complaint was filed. He was accused of writing checks on a lady friend’s account, a widow who owned the driving range he managed.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œShe withdrew the complaint when he proposed marriage.”
    â€œDid he marry her?”
    â€œYes.” Phil sipped the beer, his eye on the screen. “A civil ceremony.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œOh, she divorced him. Got a court order to keep him away from her. That’s when he came back to Chicago and got the job tending bar.”
    Sounds in the hallway indicated that Marie was listening in. Father Dowling raised a hand and nodded toward the door. Phil understood. Not that he wanted to go on talking about Gregory Packer. In the eighth inning, a grounder scooted by the second baseman, and the batter was safe on a close call at first.
    â€œDamn,” Phil commented.

4
    When Phil Keegan told Cy Horvath of Marie Murkin’s reaction to learning about Gregory Packer, there was no alteration of expression on the lieutenant’s Hungarian countenance. Telling Phil that he had known Greg Packer when they were altar boys at St. Hilary’s had been meant to explain why he had checked on Greg, but Phil seemed to find nothing odd about his curiosity. The truth was that the memory of Greg had been playing at the edges of Cy’s mind for years, ever since the gruesome killing of Wally Flanagan. Wally, too, had been an altar boy, and he and Greg had been thick as thieves