Death at Christy Burke's (39 page)

He could see her thinking, then coming to a realization about something.

“This is the couple you told me about on the phone that time. I called, and it was clear something was on your mind, and you gave voice to your frustration over your efforts to counsel a family of your acquaintance. You didn’t name them, of course, being discreet as always; you implied that they were members of your parish.”

“They are.”

“But even then, I had the impression they were more to you than parishioners.”

“Is that so?”

“Because halfway through your story, you departed from the standard priestly vocabulary and went on to describe the man as a stubborn fecking bonehead on whom God had wasted the gift of superior intelligence, because if he didn’t have enough sense to appreciate what he had in the person of his wife, then he would lose her to some other man who would take the husband’s place and be the luckiest man in Christendom, and then where would the husband be, and wouldn’t it serve him right, the fecker!” Molly took a sip of wine and smiled at her brother. “Or words to that effect.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“You remember everything.”

“Your point?”

“I’m thinking this is your friend Monty that you were ranting about. You wouldn’t have been that worked up about someone you barely knew. So, back to the subject of his wife. Your fudging about her status suggests your matchmaking efforts have not yet borne fruit.”

“I’m still at it.”

“Tell me about her. What’s she like?”

Where to begin? He shrugged, and took another long drag of his cigarette.

“A nonentity, is she? A cipher? A bit of fluff? I thought you said she was your friend. You don’t usually have time for vapid individuals about whom there is nothing to say.”

“The MacNeil is a very strong personality, the farthest thing in the world from vapid or fluffy. She’s got a tongue in her head that would slice through the right foreleg of your horse just as it was coming down the home stretch at Leopardstown, and you’d lose the house all over again.”

“But there’s more to her than that.”

“Oh, yes. Great depths beneath all that armour.”

“Sounds like somebody I know,” she said, holding him in the gaze of her dark blue eyes.

Then she turned up the flames under him. “You know, Bren, at the time of that phone conversation I remember thinking there was a bit of a subtext to it. That you genuinely wanted what was best for this family, no question. But there also might have been an element of temptation, in the form of this woman whom you knew, living apart from her husband, and that the temptation would ease somewhat if he moved back in with her.”

His sister could make a bonfire out of him right here in her kitchen and she wouldn’t be able to force him into
that
sort of discussion.

“If you met this one, Molly, you wouldn’t be able to imagine her tarting herself up as a temptress to lure a passing priest into her clutches.”

“That’s not what I meant, sweetheart. I was referring to your own state of mind. I’m not suggesting for a minute she’s one of these people who comes to the door with her face newly painted, yet still happens to be in her filmy negligee, when you come calling.”

“Unthinkable! If she could hear this conversation, she would have me reduced in thirty seconds to a quivering heap of gelatinous matter on the floor.”

“Glad to hear it. You’ve met your match in her.”

“On the day I was born, I met my match. In you!”

“Does she have a name?”

“Didn’t I tell you her name?”

“No you didn’t. You said the MacNeil. What’s her name?”

“Maura.”

“Perfect. I knew it wouldn’t be Tiffany. Well, even though I had to pull it out of you, it comes as a relief to hear about this cast of characters in your life. Because I worry about you. You’re a mystic and a man of God, you say a beautiful Mass and your music is brilliant, and the church is damn lucky to have you, and we’re all proud of you. But I worry that you’re too self-contained for your own good.”

“And here I was thinking we already have a shrink in the family, and it’s Paddy, not yourself.”

“You’re my little brother. And since you don’t worry about yourself, or talk about your troubles, if you have any troubles, just as you would never admit to any pain when you’d get hurt and bloodied in your old Gaelic football days, and you just a wee boy at the time, and since you haven’t changed one iota since that time —”

“Where’s that sentence going? You lost me several
since
s ago.”

“Don’t change the subject, which is that you haven’t changed since you were that hard-headed little scrapper in the streets of Dublin.”

“My dear, nobody has changed as much as I have.”

“Think so, do you?”

“Do you have another bottle of this?” he said, indicating the empty wine bottle.

“I rest my case. And no, I didn’t have two bottles of that, but I do have a nice Chianti.” She got up and found the wine, opened it, filled her brother’s glass, and poured half a glass for herself.

“All right,” Brennan announced, “I’m roasted and done. Now let’s talk about you.”

Molly told Brennan that her divorce from Neville would soon be finalized, that she had kicked him out of the house a couple of years earlier because she refused to allow anyone to treat her with so little consideration, and their son and daughter, who, as Brennan knew, were grown and living in Devon and Oxford, respectively, backed her up. Once Brennan was brought up to date on all of that, he and his sister went back to their childhood and relived old times until Brennan reluctantly parted from her at two in the morning, with a promise to take care of himself and all belonging to him, and returned to his hotel.

Michael

Michael and Brennan met at the Holyhead ferry terminal on Friday and boarded the ship to Ireland. Brennan filled Michael in on his conversation with Abigail Howard. The incident at the Public Record Office had really occurred, even if not quite in the way Motor Mouth McCrum had reported it. Then Brennan asked how Michael’s tour of Cambridgeshire had gone and, of course, Michael came clean and reported on the real reason for his visit. Brennan didn’t seem surprised, but he was dismayed to hear that it was not the lawyer, but Rod O’Hearn himself, who had swindled the family. Michael did not know what to do with that knowledge. He would have to reflect on it.

But right now Michael was more interested in what he had just learned about Eddie Madigan. The ex-cop really had been drummed out of the Dublin police force following a disastrous attempt to break into the secret archives in London. The action was considered so serious that Madigan would rather be thought a crooked cop, taking payoffs from drug pushers, than have the truth get out. And his employer, the Garda Síochána, felt the same way. They were saved public embarrassment by making a deal with the British authorities to give up a criminal or a spy — someone they had in custody in Dublin. The exchange satisfied the British and allowed the Irish to keep the incident under wraps. What was in those records that prompted Madigan to take such desperate action?

Michael could puzzle over it till doomsday and be none the wiser. And he could hardly walk into the nearest garda station and ask the sergeant on duty about it. The only person Michael could think of to ask was Leo Killeen, who seemed to be in the know about many shadowy activities in and pertaining to Ireland. He would buttonhole Leo the next day and see what he could find out.

“I’m going to have a word with Leo,” Michael told Brennan Saturday afternoon. They were sitting in Michael’s room having a cup of tea.

“A word about what?”

“Madigan, if you’ll be kind enough to excuse me for a minute.”

“That’s about all the time it will take for Leo to put the run to you.”

“Maybe so, but I’ll give it a try. Help yourself to some more tea.”

Michael got up and went to Leo’s room, knocked and was invited inside. After the two exchanged greetings, Michael got down to business. “Now I have a question for you, and don’t be taking my head off for asking it.”

“Allow me to guess the subject of your question, if I might, Michael. ‘Leo, where can a fellow go for a bit of sightseeing and souvenir shopping for the folks back home? Somewhere scenic, not too frantic, so I can slow down the somewhat hectic pace of my visit so far.’ Would it be something along those lines, Michael?”

“Em, no, not exactly, Leo. There’s a man who interests me in Christy Burke’s pub.”

Leo sighed. “Yes?”

“Fellow by the name of Eddie Madigan.”

“What about him?”

“You know him.”

“I don’t know him well, but we’re acquainted, yes.”

“I heard something about him.”

“Of course you did. Because instead of contenting yourself with having an occasional pint and touring the country with your friends and saying Masses and hearing confessions — not that I don’t appreciate the assistance you’ve been giving us at the church during the course of your so-called vacation — instead of being content with those wholesome and spiritually uplifting activities, you are turning up little stones all over the city, and what may crawl out may not crawl back in again. I’ve warned you, Michael, and I’m warning you again, you may get yourself into the soup with some of your inquiries. Politics, loyalties, old enmities, you never know what you might be stirring up.”

That of course brought the Merle Odom slaying to the front of Michael’s mind. “Leo, about the American preacher, who do you suppose . . .”

Leo put up a warning hand. “Not now, Michael. What is it you came to ask me?”

“Well, most of what we’ve uncovered so far in the Christy’s investigation has nothing political about it. Except perhaps in the case of Madigan.” Leo gazed at Michael without expression. Michael continued, “We’ve uncovered information that casts doubt on the story that Madigan was sacked from the police force because of drug-related corruption.”

“Have you now.”

“There was a break-in at the Public Record Office in London.”

Leo was silent for a few seconds, then said, “Go on.”

“It was Madigan.”

“And this tells you what?”

“There was something Madigan was so desperate to see in those files that he risked his entire career — risked arrest in England — to try to find it.”

“And this is connected to your inquiries about the scribblings on the wall of Christy’s pub? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Well, in all honesty, I don’t know how it would relate, but . . .”

“But what?”

“I was wondering whether you knew anything about Madigan or the records he might have been looking for. Or whether you could recommend someone I could ask.”

“I’ll tell you what I don’t recommend: raising this question anywhere within the hearing of a garda or a Madigan. Or a pub gossip sitting on a stool in Christy Burke’s.”

“I had that much figured out on my own, Leo!”

“Good man. Leave it with me. I’ll make a couple of calls. If I have nothing to tell you, give it up, Michael! Promise?”

“If you have nothing to tell me, then there’s probably nowhere I can go with it anyway.”

“That’s not exactly the sort of promise I was looking for.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I guess I’ll have to live with that!”

Michael caught Leo glancing at his wristwatch and said, “I’ve been taking up your time here, Leo.”

“No, Michael, it’s not you. It’s just that I’m expecting someone,
so . . .”

“I’ll be off then. See you later, Leo.
Dominus
tecum
.”

“The blessing of God on you, Michael.”

Brennan

Michael returned to his room and said to Brennan, “I’ve made some inquiries. If they pan out, my son, you’ll be the first to know.”

Brennan nodded absently. He had his head in a newspaper full of rioting and violence in the North of Ireland in the wake of the American minister’s death. He and Michael exchanged a few comments about that but Brennan had other things on his mind. It was no accident that he was sitting idly in Michael’s room that warm, sunny Saturday afternoon. He was there at the request of Leo Killeen, who had been very enigmatic but said he’d like to have Brennan in the house. On standby, he said. He was expecting a visitor and, if there was trouble, Leo might have to call on Brennan for backup. He also instructed Brennan to leave Michael O’Flaherty out of it. How he could do that, with the pair of them sitting at Michael’s kitchen table, Brennan didn’t know. He would deal with it if he had to.

After a few more minutes of conversation with Michael, Brennan heard footsteps outside and turned in his chair to look out the window. A youngish priest was striding towards the house, glaring at it as if it might be the wrong address and a waste of his time. He appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties and had an uncompromising look about him; Brennan would not want to blot his copybook in that fellow’s catechism class. But then, the same had been said about Brennan himself. He heard a sharp rap at the door and heard Leo go out of his room and head downstairs.

“Oh,” said Michael, “Leo’s having company. He told me he’s expecting someone.”

“Mmm,” Brennan replied.

It struck him then that there was something familiar about the visitor. Brennan ran the image of the man’s face through his mind like a videotape. Exactly like a video — then he recognized him. The man who had shot and killed the Reverend Merle Odom was here in Leo’s house, dressed as a priest.

Michael was sitting in the kitchen chair closest to the wall adjoining Leo’s room. Brennan wanted that seat.

“Can you hear that?” he asked Michael.

“Leo, you mean?”

“No, the bells. Where would they be coming from at this time of day? It’s not time for the Angelus.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Sit here. Maybe you can figure out what church it would be.”

So they switched seats, and Michael pulled his chair closer to the window in the hopes of hearing the nonexistent, or at least non-ringing, church bells.

“I don’t hear a thing. But your ears are younger than mine. And more acute when it comes to music and bells.”

Brennan shrugged and got Michael onto another subject of discourse. Brennan then tuned Michael out because his attention was focused elsewhere, on the sounds coming from the room on the other side of the wall behind him. He couldn’t make out a word of conversation but he could hear voices. Voices raised, voices lowered. Raised and lowered. And on it went. What was the man — Desmond, that was the killer’s name — what was he doing here? What were he and Killeen discussing so intently in the room next door?

Brennan jumped, startled by a loud noise, and spilled his tea all over his arm. What was that? A loud crash on the other side of the wall. Then nothing. Absolute silence.

Michael sprang out of his chair and started for the door, but Brennan was ahead of him.

“Michael, stay here.”

“There’s something going on in there! Leo —”

“Michael, I know. I’m going to handle it. For your own good, stay in here with the door shut. Don’t show your face.”

“But —”

Brennan stopped him with a hand on his chest, then bounded to the door, wrenched it open, and launched himself towards the door to Leo’s room. He knocked. No answer. Knocked again. Something had happened in there. But not to both of them, surely. And who was more likely to have had the better of an encounter? The slight, elderly Leo Killeen or the strapping young man Brennan had seen entering the house? Brennan turned the doorknob and pushed. The door opened without resistance; Leo had left it unlocked. There was a man on his knees on the floor and another standing, glaring down at him, eyes blazing. Gone was the hard, arrogant look from the face of Desmond of the Provisional IRA. He was on his knees before Leo Killeen, his expression one of misery and apprehension. Leo was the embodiment of the wrath of God; his intensity was unnerving even to Brennan, standing in the entrance out of harm’s way. Leo had things well in hand. Brennan wasn’t needed. He backed out of the room and quietly shut the door.

Michael was standing where Brennan had left him, his light blue eyes pinned to the doorway.

“It’s all right. Really. Leo’s got things under control.”

“Who’s in there? What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you, Mike. And you’re better off not knowing. Go and wet the tea. We’ll have a seat and wait till the fellow departs.”

Not long afterwards, they heard the sound of someone leaving Leo’s room and going down the stairs. Michael turned in his chair to peek out the window.

“Michael, turn around. Get away from the window.”

Brennan’s tone of voice did the trick. Michael whipped around to face Brennan, a look of bewilderment and then fear in his face. “Brennan, what in God’s name . . .”

Brennan put his hand on Michael’s shoulder, and peered around him. He could see Desmond out on the pavement, with a videotape in his right hand. He walked away, diminished, his eyes cast down, the swagger gone from his step.

Brennan didn’t move from the window when Leo came into the room.

Leo dispensed with the preliminaries. “Michael, I’m sorry. I have to speak to Brennan alone.”

Brennan followed Leo into the hallway and gently closed the door behind him.

“He found out about the videotape,” Leo explained. “Not surprisingly. Young Clancy ’fessed up that he had brought the tape to me for his own protection, so somebody would know he wasn’t the one who shot the minister. Of course Desmond couldn’t allow that to go unchallenged, given that it was him on the tape committing the murder!”

“Thank Christ he didn’t take matters into his own hands and go after Clancy.”

“Well, he couldn’t, with the tape still out there.”

“So he came to Dublin in clerical dress.”

“On my advice. He’s not the first man to cross the border, in either direction, disguised as a priest!”

“Nobody would look twice at him coming to this house.”

“Exactly. But as soon as he’s inside, he’s effing and blinding, and threatening to kill those two poor goms who snatched the American. Says he knows they’re back in Dublin now. Clancy and his accomplice, whoever he is. Where was the videotape? Did I make copies? Well, I had to settle him down in short order. I invited him to tear the place apart looking for a copy. But he didn’t. He knew I wasn’t lying to him. I had the one and only tape, and I slammed it down on the table so hard I snapped one of the table legs off; that would be when you came in to see what had befallen me.”

“I was afraid he’d attacked you.”

“No, no, not at all. He’s the one who’s afraid, for his immortal soul. Killing a man in cold blood, and threatening to kill two others. Well, I got him settled down. He knows Clancy and the other lad will be going to their graves without telling the story. Those two are painfully aware that if the Desmond name gets about, he’ll know they talked. Desmond understands a couple of other things as well. That I’m not about to turn informer, so he has nothing to fear from me. And if he crosses me or causes me any harm, he’ll have his conscience to answer to. But more than that, he’ll have some earthly beings to answer to as well! Men who wouldn’t be up and walking if it weren’t for my interventions on their behalf; they ‘owe me,’ to put it in the crass terms of the marketplace. I put the word out to these fellows, without of course saying what Desmond had done; just said that if I come to grief they should look to Desmond as a possible cause. I got Desmond sorted.”