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to take a break and they went into the bar for a beer. Sitting at a little table, looking out at the greenery, they reviewed what they had learned. It didn’t help much. Then Jimmy called in. He held the phone to his ear, his face impassive. He turned off the phone and looked at Phil.
    â€œThe poison was in his water bottle.”

7
    Francie O’Kelly had agreed to accompany her mother on this grudge return to Notre Dame but her motive, of course, was otherwise. She would be a senior at St. Mary’s across the way and had an ambivalent attitude toward the larger institution. St. Mary’s continued as a women’s college, having successfully resisted the blandishments of Notre Dame to merge. It was the failure of that effort at uniting the two institutions that had led to Notre Dame’s decision to go coed. At the time, this had been thought vindictive since the supposition was that if women could go to Notre Dame, they would eschew St. Mary’s and the college would wither on the vine. In any event, the college flourished. Its students had all the advantages of the facilities at Notre Dame while retaining the repose and dignity of a women’s institution. Despite the presence of so many eligible women on the Notre Dame campus, perhaps because of it, the women of St. Mary’s continued to be favored by Notre Dame men. Thus it was that Francie and Paul Sadler had met and entered upon a stormy but unbreakable relationship. This trip to South Bend with her mother gave Francie the opportunity of seeing Paul, who was taking a summer course in botany and working with the golf sports camp, the position secured by the fact that he was a member of the golf team.
    â€œHow was your game?”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œBeat your mother?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œCome on, she’s good.”
    Francie dipped her head in acknowledgment of this. She herself golfed well because she didn’t take the game seriously, and it still surprised her that intelligent people like Paul and her mother could consider knocking a ball about and rolling it into a hole as an accomplishment to be boasted of. ESPN carried matches in strange sports, and trying to follow them brought home to her the idiocy of most games. Francie was wise enough to keep such heresy to herself. With Paul she was willing to talk golf until the cows came home.
    â€œHow about tonight?”
    â€œI promised my mother to have dinner with her. Want to join us?”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œThe Morris Inn.”
    He shook his head. “My uncle is staying there.”
    This was the notorious Mortimer Sadler, her mother’s nemesis, bête noire, and designated Hittite. Paul seemed scarcely more fond of his uncle than did Maureen O’Kelly.
    â€œWhat’s he ever done to you?” she had asked the first time Paul made a face at the mention of his uncle Mortimer.
    â€œIt’s a family thing.”
    â€œOh well…”
    â€œIt would bore you.”
    â€œI’ll be the judge of that.”
    There were four Sadler siblings: two sons, Mortimer and Paul’s father, Samuel, who was a few years older; and the two girls, Bridget and Irene, both younger. They had married and moved away from Minneapolis, but by the terms of their father’s will the four were equal heirs to the fortune he had amassed. They not only owned equal shares in the Sadler insurance agency, the four were on the board of governors of the Sadler Foundation. Mortimer was president of both the agency and the foundation because Samuel had no head for business. Paul had been raised in Deephaven, the youngest of three, and when he went off to Notre Dame his widowed father sold the house and bought a cabin on an isolated shore of Lake Minnetonka.
    â€œWhat does he do?”
    â€œHe reads a lot. He’s stopped playing golf.”
    Paul made this sound like his epitaph, but Sam Sadler’s health was good. He had taught philosophy in a