Friends with money problems never had to ask Detective John Kelleher for a loan; he would promptly write them a check or hand over cash.
Officers with marital problems could always crash at Kelleher's house in Jamaica Plain.
Kelleher was known to talk so much that friends would make sure they had hours to spare before going out to dinner with him.
But he rarely talked about the favors he did for people. And since his death Monday, stories of his generosity have begun to trickle out to his family and friends, who yesterday flocked to a funeral Mass said for him in Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Jamaica Plain.
"People will never know the amount of people he helped," said Joseph Driscoll, a retired deputy superintendent who worked with Kelleher when both were detectives in Brighton. "He wouldn't brag about it. He wouldn't tell you about it. . . . The only reason you'd find out is if you happened to run into the person he'd helped."
Kelleher, who suffered from Crohn's disease, died a few months after he retired from the Police Department. He was 65.
He had married his longtime fiancée, Eileen Daley, about four months ago, friends said.
Kelleher was constantly in and out of the hospital because of his illness, but he rarely complained about the condition, mostly because he did not want to worry anyone, friends said.
Independent and self-reliant, he rarely asked for help and once took a cab to a crime scene because there were no police cars left at the station.
"He didn't want to bother anyone for a ride," said his nephew, Patrick Gavin, 32.
Kelleher, whose father was a policeman, passed the exam in 1970, but a hiring freeze at the department led him to politics. He successfully ran for the state House of Representatives in 1972, and in 1974, after the freeze was lifted, he joined the Police Academy. State law forbade him from holding both jobs, so he proposed legislation that would allow him to keep his police job. He took a leave of absence from the department while he served his term.
When he lost reelection in 1976, he returned to policing, working in the South End, Dorchester, and the vice squad, a special unit that investigated organized crime and prostitution.
He was full of tips for young officers. "Always be a gentleman" when dealing with suspects, he would say.
His most important advice, however, was "never take the elevator," a tip that led to the arrest of a rapist in Brighton around 1990, Driscoll said.
Driscoll and Kelleher, who worked the case together, went to the suspect's home, an apartment on the fourth floor. Driscoll suggested the elevator, but Kelleher said they should take the stairs, figuring a criminal on the run would choose stairs to flee.
They ran into the suspect on the third floor.
"I never took an elevator again," Driscoll said.
Kelleher was also a businessman. His family owned two bars in the city and he became wealthy buying and selling property around Jamaica Plain and Brookline, friends said.
But he didn't dress like a rich man, favoring corduroy jackets, lime green socks, and plaid Polo shirts.
He rarely changed his hairstyle, letting his thick, corkscrew curls grow over his forehead.
"He was stuck in the '70s," joked his nephew, Boston police Sergeant David Gavin.
He used his money to help friends, said David Mittell, an editorial writer at The Providence Journal and a friend of Kelleher's.
In the early 1990s, Mittell, then a freelancer, received a notice from the IRS stating he owed $1,600 in back taxes. The glum writer went to the Galway House, a bar in Jamaica Plain, where he found Kelleher, who immediately sensed something was wrong. Mittell confided in him. Two days later, Kelleher handed his friend 16 $100 bills.
Stunned, Mittell suggested they write up an IOU. Kelleher just stared back at him.
"How long have I known you?" the officer said. "Pay me back when you can."
Kelleher's friends repaid his generosity with loyalty, standing by him when the FBI investigated him and dozens of other officers in the 1980s for allegedly soliciting bribes. Kelleher was never charged, but the allegations hurt him terribly, Driscoll said.
"I can't tell you what an honest man he was," he said. "He was a policeman first and wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that job. He loved it too much."
When Gavin told his uncle he wanted to join the force, the detective gave him simple advice.
" Be a good person,' " Gavin recalled Kelleher rasping in his thin voice. " 'Try to help out people with the small things. You're not going to save the world. If you can help out a lot of people with a lot of small things, that will make a difference in people's lives.' "
Globe correspondent J.M. Lawrence contributed to this report. Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.
