The Death of an Irish Lover (2 page)

The quarters in the pub half of the double-sided building seemed almost Spartan in contrast.

There were no tables, no paintings, not even a framed print on the walls. Only three chairs positioned between the four rooms that lay on either side of the hall. Tall, straight-backed, and mute, they stood resolute, rather like a ghostly jury, McGarr imagined.

Tallon stopped before room 5 and fanned through the ring of keys that was attached to his belt by a snap cord. “These rooms are taken on a B&B basis by commercial travelers, lorry drivers, and anglers who either can’t afford the inn or aren’t interested in much more than the sport and the pub. It’s right below us.

“At night, the chatter and noise come straight up through the floor, which is why, I suppose”—he twisted a key in the lock and pushed open the door—“nobody heard it. Or if they did, no thought was given to the possibility.” He stood back and let McGarr enter first.

The bed, which stood rather like an island between two windows in the center of the room, was high with a tall footboard. McGarr had to walk around to get a clear view.

There, with a sheet half over them, lay a naked man and woman, she on top of him, her head on his chest, her right hand still clasped in his left. A bullet—something powerful, like a 9mm—had been fired through her temple. And…

McGarr moved closer to examine the man. Blood had flowed down the side of his large chest and pooled in the depression that the weight of their bodies made in the mattress. And…the bullet had passed into his chest, McGarr speculated, since there appeared to be no visible mark on him and her head was directly over his heart.

She was a young woman. A natural blond. Diminutive, with a pixieish look made all the more apparent by a rather short if stylishly feminine cut to her hair and eyes that were startlingly blue, even in death.

Like some blonds, her skin appeared smooth and translucent. But it was also evident that she had either trained regularly or taken part in some vigorous sport. Her back was taut and well muscled.

The wound was clean, dark, and the size of a 10 P coin, any blood having flowed in the direction of the bullet. And with her mouth slightly open in what looked almost like the first movement of a smile, the expression on her dead face was jarring. It seemed almost…ecstatic.

Scarcely twenty-five, McGarr guessed. There was a tattoo of a butterfly at the base of her spine. She was wearing a cheap electronic watch with a plastic band and simple gold earrings to match the wedding band
on her ring finger. And her nails had been enameled the light blue color of her eyes.

McGarr studied the man.

Who looked to be twice her age. Fifty, say, but sturdily constructed. Hirsute to say the least, he had a great mass of steely gray hair on his head, face, chest, and even his arms. A farmer’s tan gave him a rather Latin look. With dark eyes and large even teeth, he had been a handsome older man.

Who, like she, had been caught so unawares by their murderer that his only concession to death appeared to be the slackness of his jaw. McGarr reached down and drew the sheet off them.

Even his legs—which were between hers—were crossed at the ankles, as though to suggest that the activity that they had been engaged in had been leisurely, at least for him. Or that it had been her duty or opportunity to…entertain him, given her position, straddling him.

He was wearing a condom, and his penis—hugely engorged in death—lolled between their thighs.

“Husband and wife?” McGarr asked.

Tallon piped scorn for the possibility. “No chance. Look at them. He could have been her grandfather. And maybe he was, for all we know.”

When he chuckled, McGarr turned his head to him.

Tallon raised a hand. “Please don’t take that wrong, Peter. It’s just that he was obviously as guilty as she in that.” He jabbed a finger at the corpses. “And don’t I know her poor husband, who’s a local lad. She’d been making a cuckold of him with this man, off but mainly on—if you know what I mean—for nine months now.

“And can I let you in on another little secret?”

McGarr only continued to regard Tallon, who
seemed suddenly animated. On his curious legs, the tall man moved to the closet and with a finger pushed wide the closet door that had been open a crack. “They were two of your own.”

He turned to McGarr, his eyes glittering, a thin smile on his lips.

There hung neatly on hangers were two groups of clothes, one obviously male and the other female: uniform outdoor jackets in two different colors, durable shirts and weather-resistant trousers, a pair of half-rubberized ankle boots for him and full farmer’s Wellies for her. Their undergarments were neatly folded on an upper shelf.

What struck McGarr was the order of everything, as though these two had not thrown off their vestments and made urgent—could it have been?—love. No. They had calmly, dispassionately arranged their clothes before climbing into bed together. Young fetching woman and late middle-aged man.

Why? Because…they had done so before, he supposed. There was not even a bottle of wine or a bit of whiskey in sight to loosen inhibitions or provide relief in case the congruence proved uncomfortable. What they had been having here had been arranged and pursued with method. “Two of my own in what regard?”

“Why, in regard to your occupation,” Tallon announced with near glee. With the tips of his fingers, he pulled back the placket of the woman’s jacket to reveal, first, what looked like an official police photo ID that had been clipped to an inner pocket.

“Eel police,” Tallon explained.

“I beg your pardon.”

“The Guards—your Guards—who’re assigned to
catch poachers on the river. The ones that are snatching up all the eels. There’s big money in that.”

McGarr had heard or read of the operation, which was teamed with the Shannon River Fisheries Board. But even though the enforcement officers could issue arrest warrants and were allowed to carry guns to defend themselves from the thugs that the highly profitable activity attracted, they were employees of the Fisheries Board, not the Garda Siochana. And yet they were, after a fashion, cops. Dead cops.

McGarr glanced over at the pair, who were still locked in an embrace. “Names?”

“His is Burke, Pascal Burke. He was in charge of the eel-policing operation and had just returned from Dublin, where he lived, after a fortnight up there. It was how he worked, two weeks up there, two down here.

“She’s Ellen Finn, who would come down on his first day back and give him the big welcome that you see there.”

Tallon paused to shake his head. “Whoever shot them must have used Burke’s shooter, which is missing. Or, at least, it’s not in his holster.” He opened the larger jacket to reveal the holster hanging there. It was empty. “But hers is still where it should be.”

Tallon opened the smaller foul-weather jacket; a kidney holster had been strapped over a hanger in a way that could support the weight of a 9mm weapon. From it protruded the distinctive butt grip of a Glock.

“You looked for it,” McGarr said. “You went through their clothes. And her purse.” He pointed to the large leather handbag that lay on the carpet between the closet and the bed, much of its contents spilled out.

“Me? No, Peter, this mess here is not me. It’s how I found the place, with the door of the closet nearly closed. I figure this—whoever murdered them managed to slip into the room or was here before they arrived, and while they were busy doing whatever, got hold of his gun there in the closet and moved to the bed without being heard. Then, the bastard whacked the both of them. Bingo. One shot through her head and into his heart.”

There was a kind of awe in that.

“And, mind, Peter—I’m not trying to do your job for you. It’s just—”

“But you went into her purse.” McGarr’s voice did not rise up in question but rather fell, as though affirming a fact. He nodded before adding, “You searched the room for her weapon?”

“No, Janie—I wouldn’t think of it. It’s just that I knew she carried a gun and was good with it. Didn’t she shoot out the tires of a poacher’s van recently and run them in. It was in all the papers.

“But I swear, Peter, as God is my judge, I only glanced into the thing and said to Syl, there’s no way it could be in there. Ask her, she’ll tell you.

“In fact, the first glimpse I got of them I thought of you. Call Peter, says I to meself. He’s an old friend, he’ll know what to do, how to go about this quietly. Isn’t he the chief of the murder cops? The best. Hasn’t he made a career out of this class of thing? He’ll know how to keep the lid on.

“Syl agreed. ‘Call Peter,’ she insisted, ‘he’s known you all your life, he’ll be discreet.’”

“Where is she now?”

“Who?”

“Your wife.”

“Resting. This thing has done her in, so it has.”

“Could you get her?”

There was a pause. “I think I could. Why?”

“Was it she who discovered them?”

“No, the maid did.”

“Then, I’d like to see her, too.”

“I’m afraid she’s gone home. This whole thing—”

“Well then…?” McGarr’s hand came up with the fingers splayed, as though to suggest that could Tallon not provide him with the maid, then he was powerless to keep…what was the phrase? The lid on. “It’s your choice.”

“Of course. I’ll get you the both of them. It might take some doing with the maid. But my wife will be here immediately.”

When Tallon left the room, McGarr did two things: He used the cell phone in his jacket pocket to contact his office. Reporting the double murder he requested a medical examiner to certify the deaths, a team from the Technical Squad to go over the room and seal any evidence, and an ambulance to transport the corpses to Dublin for postmortem exams.

In no way would McGarr compromise his office where a double murder of two law officers was concerned, “old friend” or not. And Tallon’s fixation with publicizing the matter, which was inevitable, rather interested him.

If most of Tallon’s guests in the inn half of the hostelry were foreign fishermen or even Irish fishermen, how much would the report of any crime that happened over the pub, which was physically—and seemed to be treated by Tallon—as a separate operation, matter to them? McGarr himself was a longtime fisherman, and what concerned him was the avail
ability of fish, a good meal, and a better bed at day’s end.

“Connect me to the Leixleap barracks, please.” When the sergeant answered, McGarr asked him to come to the room. “I need your help.”

“Can I ask what it’s about, Chief Superintendent?”

“How soon can you get here?”

“In a wink. The inn is just around the corner.”

“I’ll be expecting you.” McGarr rang off.

Moving out into the hall, McGarr carried two of the chairs from the hall into the room and placed them together at the side of the bed.

“Know them?” McGarr asked the Garda sergeant when he arrived. An older man with a scrupulously shaven face and a neat blue Garda uniform, Declan Riley looked more like a bank guard than the commander of the local barracks. He nodded.

“Well?”

From the hall they heard a door open.

Riley dipped his head to one side to mean “quite well”; his face was grave, his eyes somber. “Pascal Burke is his name. Another sergeant, like meself, and her boss.” He shook his head, plainly disturbed at what he was seeing.

“A bachelor Burke was. And very much the Dubliner.” Riley’s eyes rose to McGarr, who was another. “That’s to say—”

McGarr waved Riley off, knowing what he meant: city man among country folk.

“He always seemed to have the readies to splash
around,” Riley continued. “Drank. And ate well, usually across the way on the other side of the inn. Stayed here though, because—I’d hazard—it was easier to come and go than a room there or in somebody’s house.” Like a B&B.

“He had the reputation of being a…swordsman, if you know what I mean. Come down from town once a fortnight on an ‘inspection tour,’ like. To visit the three other fisheries police, get their reports, look things over.

“Widows, spinsters, married women. He preferred them, he once told me over a pint, since any little problem that arose would be cared for in her house, not his.

“This, though”—Riley raised his prominent chin, as though pointing to the bed—“is…
was
an outrage, with him the boss and her not even half his age and coming from one of the best families in the county. They’ll be devastated. Destroyed.” He shook his head. “They’ll never get over it, to say nothing of her young husband.”

“Name?”

“Ellen Gilday. Or at least it was Gilday up until last year when she married Quintan Finn, a fine local lad.” Riley closed his eyes and let some breath pass between his lips, before glancing at McGarr. “I wonder if there’s any way we could keep this part of it quiet? The way they are now?”

This second call for confidentiality rather surprised McGarr, coming from a man that Tallon had characterized as the town crier. He waited. Riley had more to say.

“This is a small town, a village. But a good place to live. And Tallon—gobshite that he is—runs a fine inn and pub here, even if it’s on his wife’s back.

“She had the money and…you know, the Continental touch. And it’s her who makes it work while he plays at—what?—public relations, I think you’d call it.

“The ‘Laird,’ the locals call him, adding ‘arse’ behind a hand. Sure, it’s part jealousy. Look what he’s got. But it’s how he carries himself that’s off-putting, always playing the backslapping hail-fellow with the rousing laugh to a fault. Goes fishing and shooting with the guests, stands the odd round of drinks, remembers names and sends greeting cards at Christmas with no more meaning to them than the cash in his till.

“That said, what Tallon and the wife have done with this building that was a near ruin when they bought it, has spilled out into the town. Any number of shops—fishing gear, gifts, the garage, the chemist—have bumped up their trade. And it’s a steady increase with the same faces coming back year after year with new people in tow.

“Which makes this…”—Riley’s hand flicked out at the bed—“even more of an enormity than it appears. For everybody.”

They could hear footsteps approaching the door.

McGarr lowered his voice. “I want you to listen closely to everything that’s said. Later, we’ll talk.”

The door opened, and Tallon appeared; there was a woman behind him, who looked as though she had been crying.

“What’s this?” Indignant, with brow furrowed, Tallon pointed at Riley. “Why’s he here? I thought we were going to keep this matter under wraps?”

Tired of Tallon’s carry-on, McGarr pulled back the first of the two tall chairs that he had placed near the bed. “Close the door, and sit down.”

“Well—I object. You and I were agreed. We had a definite understanding that you’d—”

“Look,” McGarr cut in, “the only understanding that can be allowed in this room is that we have two dead people—officers of the law—who were murdered, and you either help us here or down at the barracks.”

“Then it’s plain you don’t care about us, Peter.” Tallon wagged his head, his face suddenly a tragic mask. “Nor this village. You’re going to let this…thing”—he flourished a hand at the bed—“what we had nothing to do with, what was done by some outsiders, ruin our lives.

“Peter, I implore you. I beseech you. Don’t let it happen!”

There was a histrionic element to Tallon’s personality that was both curious and distressing and McGarr tried to remember if he’d always been that way. But the truth was—McGarr had had as little to do with Tallon as possible, and that little had been ugly.

“Peter, I appeal to you. Weren’t we children together? Word of a thing like this”—again the hand gestured at the bed, as though trying to erase it—“why, we might lose the entire season.

“Declan,” Tallon turned to the sergeant, “you tell him.”

“I’ll not tell him a thing,” Riley said in a low voice. “I’ll tell you, Tallon—sit your arse down and shut your bloody gob.”

“What did I tell you, Peter? The man has it in for me.”

McGarr was surprised by his own hand. As though in reflex, it shot out and seized Tallon by the arm, digging into the pressure point just above the elbow.

Tallon yelped, as McGarr walked him to the door.

“Christ—me arm!”

McGarr shoved him out the door.

“It’s ruined altogether. I’m ringing up my solicitor this minute. I’m not without friends, you know. My father—”

McGarr shut the door, and the woman took a chair.

At the bed McGarr turned the second chair so that it was facing her.

“May I have your full name.”

“Sylvie…Tallon, I call myself. Though”—her dark eyes, swollen from crying, flickered up at McGarr—“we were never married. Formally. My last name is Zeebruge.” Late thirties maybe early forties, she was a pretty woman with wavy dark hair, high cheekbones and a wide mouth. Large even teeth made her lips look protrusive and pouty.

“How long have you been a couple?”

“Six years, ever since we bought this place.”

“Why are you crying? Did you know these people?”

Her brimming eyes flashed up at him. “Why do you think? Because I’m not an animal. Because they were two human beings.”

“You knew them?”

She nodded. “Him. Pascal.”

“How did you know him?”

“He stayed here often.”

“How often?”

Her face was now running with tears, and she had to pause to blow her nose. “Once a month, since we opened. He was, like you. A chief of police.”

“What about the woman?”

She shrugged. “Of course, I knew her too.

She’s”—there was a pause; she shook her head—“from town.”

“Did they use this room, like we see them here, often?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know. He always asked for this room. We don’t pry. What he did, he did.”

“How long would he stay?”

There was another shrug and a sigh. She was a rangy woman with square shoulders that a thin shift-like garment made all the more obvious. But it was equally apparent that, although not portly, she had chosen the costume to conceal her torso. Some tufts of hair had escaped from the dark bun at the back of her head.

“At least three days. Sometimes a week, depending.” There was another shrug and a sigh.

“Depending on what?”

Her doleful eyes again met McGarr’s. “Oh—many things. He’d come for a holiday. For…women.” She wrenched her eyes away. “But usually it was the fish. The eels. Who was poaching them. Who was stealing from the licensed fishermen and the fishery, he would say. The IRA. Pascal would investigate those things.”

McGarr remembered a police report that he had scanned maybe a year earlier. It said that former IRA toughs from the North, attracted by the huge prices that Shannon River eels could command, had tried to muscle in on the industry.

They had roughed up legitimate fishermen and stolen their catches, then demanded protection money from others. Even poaching, which required some actual work, was not beyond them, but only when the eels were running strong.

“You knew Mr. Burke well.”

She only stared at McGarr in a way that he interpreted as an acknowledgment.

“How do you think this happened?”

Her eyes closed, and her nostrils flared, as though trying to fight back tears.

“Who did this?” McGarr encouraged.

“Are you going to do as Tim asked?”

“I’m no fan of the press, but you must understand—I have to ask questions.”

Her eyes opened; she nodded. “The thugs, the IRA.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They’re bastards, gangsters. They’ll do anything for easy money. You must know so yourself.”

He knew that some former regular IRA—having abandoned their ideals and with no trade or occupation beyond the cudgel and the gun—had turned to crime. Gangsterism. Because they understood organization. “Anybody in mind?”

“Manus Frakes. And his brother, Donal.”

McGarr turned his head to the sergeant, who nodded; he knew them.

“They stay here?”

“They have, but not now.”

“How could somebody have entered this room and done this without you or your husband having known?”

“I was busy over in the inn with our fishing guests, I have my hands filled there. I never come here.”

“What about your husband? Where does he work? What are his duties?”

She only shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”

McGarr remembered Tallon having to unlock the door into the archway from the inn and then unlock the
second door into the B&B quarters. “Is there free passage up onto this floor?”

She shook her head. “The doorway to the stairs is in the bar. It’s locked. A guest either has to use his passkey, or the barman can buzz it open.”

McGarr pointed at the bed. “Was this woman registered with this man in this room?”

She shook her head. “No. I checked. You know, after—”

“Did you know she was up here?”

“No. But even if I did, I wouldn’t have suspected that.” With her chin she gestured toward the bed. “Ellen was newly married, and they were colleagues. Why shouldn’t she come here? Perhaps they had something to discuss.” A tear gathered on her high cheekbone before tracking down her face. “But…this. I never suspected.”

“Was it usual for Mr. Burke to have guests in his room?”

“I don’t know. I have the inn to mind and those guests. Tim”—she shrugged, saying the name—“is supposed to look after the bar and these quarters. And Benny.”

“Who?”

“The head bartender. Benny Carson.”

“He was on duty last night?”

She nodded. “He works the weekends. Always.”

Again McGarr moved a hand toward the bed. “Who found them? Yourself?”

“No, the maid.”

“And she came to you.”

She had to pause and blow her nose. “Yes, of course.”

“And not your husband.”

Her head swirled, as though such a suggestion was
absurd. “He was…out. Fishing, perhaps. Again, you’ll have to ask him.”

They could hear him now, roaring something that included the word “outrage.”

McGarr stood. “So, I will.”