The Widow's Mate by Ralph McInerny

Wally’s death was no longer applicable, but that made it more mysterious rather than less. Now, belatedly, at Amos Cadbury’s request and with Phil Keegan’s blessing, Cy was finally trying to piece together the lost years of Wally Flanagan. All he had come up with was the lost years of Sandra Bochenski.
    The wedding in San Diego between Sandra Bochenski and Gregory Packer was a surprise until Cy wondered if Wally had used their old friend’s name to throw off anyone who might be trying to locate the couple. The subsequent stories about Greg Packer and the owner of the driving range he managed, ending in marriage, made it unlikely that the accused was Wally. Indeed, newspaper photographs made it clear that the culprit was Gregory Packer. That woman, Cecilia, had been found drowned in her pool. It was declared accidental, but how could Cy not wonder if Greg Packer had decided to become sole owner of the driving range? So what had happened to Sandra Bochenski? A helpful colleague had scanned databases and come up with a Sandra Bochenski in Oxnard. Cy had been ready to fly out to interview her but received word that she had returned to Chicago. Hence the trip to her old apartment building in the wild hope that she might be there.
    Cy was on Michigan when a couple emerged from the little park around the old water tower. The tweed hat in this kind of weather would have caught his attention in any case, but there was little doubt that it was Tuttle. The woman, Cy would have bet his pension on it, was Sandra Bochenski. Cy watched them, keeping out of sight. They parted, Tuttle heading in one direction, the woman in the other.
    Cy followed her to the Whitehall Hotel. He waited several minutes and then went in. “Is Sandra Bochenski staying here?”
    A blank look. Cy read the clerk’s name tag and asked the question again in Hungarian.
    The broad face lit up. He punched the computer and said, in English, “Eight-oh-three.”
    Cy wrote it down.
    â€œYou can use the house phone.” He said this in Hungarian.
    â€œHow long has she been registered?”
    The clerk became wary, and Cy showed him his identification. All camaraderie was suddenly gone. Who knows what memories were awakened in the transplanted Hungarian? He suggested that Cy talk to the manager.
    Cy took a chair in the diminutive lobby and thought. Now that he had located the woman, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to confront her until he knew why she had been talking with Tuttle. That suggested that she would be around for a while. If he did call her room and she came down, she might clam up like the clerk, and there wasn’t much he could do about that. He decided that having a little talk with Tuttle first was the way to go.

18
    â€œGet him out of there.”
    â€œDad!”
    Luke Flanagan paused and rubbed his face, as if to remove the scowl brought on when Melissa told him she had let Gregory Packer use the apartment over the garage. He had always been proud that she was his daughter-in-law, and her calling him Dad moved him.
    â€œHe was a friend of Wally’s, you know that.”
    â€œA bad influence. The guy’s a bad apple, he always was.”
    â€œIt’s only temporary.”
    â€œHow long is that?”
    â€œI didn’t set a deadline.”
    â€œThen I will. I don’t want him staying there.”
    â€œI’ll take care of it. I didn’t think you’d mind. What’s the point of an empty apartment?”
    Luke had turned the huge attic over the garage into an apartment for himself when he had imagined Wally and his wife living in the house. One more plan gone to hell. He had convinced himself that Greg Packer was behind his son’s decision to refuse to take over the family business. Hearing that the man was now settled in the apartment over the garage was like a kick in the stomach.
    He and Melissa were in the cafeteria of the retirement home where Luke lived. He looked