The Book of Kills by Ralph McInerny Read Free Book Online

ignoble, would not be worth prosecuting?”
    “There are other things.”
    Ranke squirmed in his chair when Roger told him of the arrested wedding at the log chapel, but of course he had heard of that. But the kidnapping of the chancellor astonished him.
    “That is being kept absolutely confidential, of course.”
    “Of course. Let me see if I understand you.”
    Ranke had a gift for succinctness. But when the story was made short it had its unsavory aspect. The university intended to gather evidence, if there was any, that Plant had been behind these events. The kidnapping loomed largest. Then, rather than have Plant prosecuted they intended to use this information to undermine any suit Plant proposed to bring against the university.
    “That’s the idea,” Roger agreed.
    “This seems very large artillery to destroy an insect.”
    “Remember, I never met the man.”
    “It was only an analogy. Surely there are simpler ways to handle a man who threatens to bring a suit with absolutely no merit against the university.”
    “There is a larger target.”
    Ranke lifted his unbarbered brows and finished his glass of beer. His pipe had gone out and he began relighting it. He was waiting.
    “What had Plant discovered about the transfer of the land to Notre Dame?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I had hoped he had shown you his research as it was done. Isn’t that the usual procedure with a doctoral dissertation?”
    “He had long wandered away from the topic we had approved.He was an erratic student, subject to obsessions. The plight of the Indians, the alleged plight, became everything to him.”
    “Did you talk to him about it?”
    “I pressed him for chapters of the dissertation he was supposedly writing.”
    Roger had the feeling that Ranke could tell him more but would not. He had come in the hope that Ranke would prove a short cut to whatever might constitute the basis for an accusation that the university counsel was sure would be made, to the vast embarrassment of Notre Dame. Roger had no compunction in helping stave off that embarrassment. He had no doubt that Native Americans had been badly treated here, though he did not think this could be laid at Father Sorin’s door. In any case, attempts to reverse all the injustices of the past would make a shambles of the world as it had come to be. On the continent, in the Middle East, in Ireland, such disputes led to armed conflict that created fresh injustices for future generations to ponder.
    “I love your book on famous authors who lectured at Notre Dame.”
    Authorial vanity, fully justified in Otto Ranke’s case, altered the atmosphere in the study. His host called for more beer and coffee, which was brought by the broad and beaming
hausfrau
who was Mrs. Ranke. For two hours they sat happily recalling a golden past. When Roger rose—with Ranke’s help—to return to his apartment before the game ended, they passed once more through the living room to the front door. And, as before, the spectral Laverne looked accusingly at them as they passed her.

10
    THE INCIDENT AT HALF time was within the sight of all eighty thousand spectators in the stadium, but only a fraction took notice. While the Florida State band played there would of course be flag twirlers and other supernumeraries clothed in the somewhat romantic costumes in which the natives of the hemisphere were thought to have dressed, but no such garb was expected when the Notre Dame band, the oldest college band in the nation, as the announcer said in reverberating tones and, one hoped, with historical justification, took the field. Throughout the game the Leprechaun had pranced about dressed like a stage Irishman, wearing a cottony false beard, taking part with the cheerleaders. But the character that took the field as one band marched off and the other prepared to occupy the gridiron was a sight never before seen in that hallowed place.
    He might have been mistaken for the Leprechaun had it not been for