Death at Christy Burke's (26 page)

Michael did not intend to impose on the Duffys all day, so he thanked them and said he’d be on his way. Would they mind dropping him off at the bus stop?

“Where are you headed now, Michael?” Niall asked.

“To Donegal Town. I like walking there, the castle and the ruins of the old abbey, all of that.”

“Well, no need to take a bus. I have to see a student down past Ballyshannon. If you’re up for a little drive, we could go through Donegal and out into the country for the lesson. I’ll enjoy the company. You’ll just have to wait a bit for the wee boy to play his scales!”

“I’d love to go along for the drive. Thank you, Niall.”

So the two men got into the Duffys’ battered little car and, after another shaky beginning, drove out into the Irish countryside. At one point Michael looked down at his feet and saw the highway going by under a hole in the rusted floor of the car. Times were obviously tough for the Duffys.

They drove into Donegal Town, which had always reminded Michael of Mahone Bay back in Nova Scotia, with the addition of a ruined Franciscan abbey and the castle of Red Hugh O’Donnell. Niall found a parking spot near the water and said, “One of our boats is docked here. Come and have a look.”

They walked along the shore, and Niall pointed ahead. They drew up beside a magnificent sailing boat, which, in Michael’s estimation, was about fifty feet in length. The hull was painted a gleaming black with cream trim; the wood of the deck and masts was in tip-top shape. But the most striking feature was the figurehead. “Look at that, Michael. The boat was built in 1893. The owner’s daughter died of a fever. That’s her, the figurehead.” It was an exquisite carving of a little girl, the folds of her dress billowing in the wind. She was depicted playing a tin whistle, and the artist managed to convey a sense of joy and mischief in the child’s face.

“Oh, Niall, she is beautiful! What artistry!”

“That was the work of Sarah’s great-grandfather. He knew the family. All of his figureheads were one of a kind. He spent months on them. I’m thinking they don’t do that now, in Miami!”

Michael shook his head at the beauty and the loss.

They returned to the car and set out for the countryside. Niall gave Michael a running commentary on the places they passed and told him about the young lad who was having his lesson that day. The child’s father had lost his job as people deserted the village in the wake of the recent Troubles; it sounded to Michael as if Niall was providing his services without expectation of payment. They pulled up before a modest bungalow in a quiet rural area. No other cars passed by. It was clear the place was not thriving.

“How far are we from the border?” Michael asked.

“A mile or so, just down that road.” Niall pointed the way. “The music lesson is for an hour. You’re more than welcome to sit in.”

“No, no, thank you, Niall. I’ll go for a little walk, and meet you back here in an hour’s time.”

“Where would you be walking to, Michael?”

“Em, I’ll just go for a bit. Get some exercise.”

“Be careful, then. Keep an eye out. Never know who’s around.”

“I won’t get into a car driven by a stranger, no worries there,” Michael said lightly.

“You won’t even see a car, if you’re of a mind to go as far as the border. The road’s closed to traffic.”

Niall went up to the door of the house. Michael stood and had a little stretch, then set out along the narrow road that led to Northern Ireland. There was nobody in sight. The land was boggy, not much good for farming. There were a few houses scattered about, but he didn’t see any life around them, not even a farm dog. He’d been walking for fifteen minutes or so when he caught sight of big metal spikes of some sort sticking up in the air. As he got closer, he saw they were attached to an enormous chunk of concrete that completely blocked the road ahead. An ugly sight, a blight on the landscape. Well, it served the purpose of stopping cross-border traffic; that was obvious. But Michael saw a young boy walking past the barrier ahead of him. He decided to do the same.

Within seconds, he was in Northern Ireland once again. Things didn’t look any better on this side of the frontier than they did on the other. Michael saw the same forlorn-looking houses scattered about. He kept going, and eventually came to a tiny village. There was hardly a soul in the streets. He stood in what must have been the market square and wondered what to do. Suddenly he jumped at the roar of a motor. He turned to see a big green and black army vehicle bearing down on him from behind. It slowed, and he saw three British soldiers inside, rifles in their arms. They looked him over before continuing on their way. What could they be looking for in this sad little place?

It began to drizzle, and that prompted Michael to move on. He walked up a side street and saw a faint light glowing in a window. Saints be praised! A pub. Just in time, as the drizzle turned to rain. He heard another loud racket and looked up to see a British Army helicopter approaching from the east, flying low over the town. Michael watched till it was out of sight, then walked over to the pub and opened the door. Half a dozen men sat on stools at the bar. Michael smiled and was about to greet them. But the expression on their faces stopped him cold. To a man they ceased their conversation and stared at the newcomer. The outsider. And he wasn’t even in his clerical garb. Was there something about his face, his clothing, his demeanour that announced he was a blow-in from the other side of the border? Michael didn’t know how they knew it, but they knew. The bartender wasn’t much better. He jerked his head up and grunted. Well, Michael wasn’t about to turn tail and leave. He ordered a glass of Bushmills, paid for it, and took it to a table in the middle of the pub. Not only did the men not speak to Michael, they didn’t say a word to one another. For some reason he thought of Monty Collins and what he would say. “A Catholic priest walks into a bar . . .” He’d make a joke about it. But Michael couldn’t come up with a punchline; there was nothing funny about this. He had rarely felt so uncomfortable in his entire life. Was it always like this, or were tensions even higher than usual with the Protestant minister missing in action? Michael finished his whiskey, got up, and left the silent pub.

He practically sprinted through the rain to the hideous pile of concrete and steel that marked the border with the Republic and hurried across. He continued his brisk pace until he arrived, nearly out of breath — Michael wasn’t forty years old anymore! — at the young boy’s house. Niall was coming out the door when he arrived.

“You’re soaked to the bone, Michael! I should have insisted that you come inside. We’ll find you some dry things to wear when we get home.”

“No, no, I’m fine, really.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Just took a little stroll.”

“You went to the border, didn’t you?”

“Em, yes.”

“Pretty grim, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed.”

They got in Niall’s little car and headed out on the road in the direction of Donegal.

Michael thought again about the beautiful boat he had seen. “It’s a shame,” he remarked, “that Sarah’s family lost the boat business. My heart goes out to them. And the fact that they were cheated out of it by a lawyer makes it so much more painful. Outrageous. How some people sleep at night is beyond me!”

Niall looked over at Michael and spoke in a quiet voice. “I suspect the lawyer is having no trouble sleeping these days, Michael.”

“You may be right. Still, shouldn’t you take steps against this man? Lay charges or at least have him investigated for fleecing his clients?”

“Can’t.”

“How come?”

“He’s gone. Disappeared.”

“Really! From where?”

“London. That’s where his practice was. Rod tried to go after him and found out he’d vanished. All the law society would say was that there was nobody in their register by that name. Sarah thinks Gilbert did so well for himself in the swindle that he took off for parts unknown and will never have to practise law again as long as he lives.” Niall stopped speaking as a lorry rattled past them on the motorway. When it had gone, he said, “But I have other ideas.”

“Such as?”

Niall glanced across at Michael. “I’m thinking maybe he’s dead.”

“Dead!”

“Killed.”

Michael turned to stare. “You’re thinking he was murdered by . . .” Niall raised his eyebrows. “Not by your brother-in-law!”

“I have no proof. Obviously.”

“Is he the type, you think, to kill a man? Has he ever shown any tendency towards violence?”

“Not that I ever saw. Rod rarely takes a drink, so I’ve never even seen him in a surly, drunken mood. But he lost everything that mattered to him when the family got screwed out of the business. I just, well . . . It struck me that nobody could find the lawyer. And somebody had a motive to kill him.” Niall looked over at his passenger. “I’m probably out to lunch here, Michael. The lawyer is more than likely alive on a tropical island somewhere, surrounded by dancing girls. I’ll tell you this much. If I ever find out that my fantasies are fact, I won’t turn my brother-in-law over to Scotland Yard! I’ll head up the defence fund. Oh, don’t listen to me, Michael. There’s something about you that encourages people to confess things they haven’t even whispered to another human being. Maybe I watch too many of those crime programs on television!”

After thanking the Duffys for their kind hospitality, Michael boarded a bus to Dublin. A beautiful journey through the countryside, but Michael’s thoughts were far from idyllic. Had Rod O’Hearn snapped and killed the lawyer who stole the family business? Had someone learned of this and scrawled cryptic messages about it on the wall of Christy Burke’s pub in Dublin? That idea didn’t make much sense. Unless Michael changed a couple of factors in the equation. Rod didn’t drink, but his brother Jimmy did. Rod wasn’t in Dublin, but Jimmy was. Jimmy had a boat and took fishing parties out on the Irish Sea. Did he perhaps cross the sea to England? If drink fuelled a vengeful rage in one of the O’Hearn brothers, would it more likely have been Jimmy? Well, maybe not. Maybe something like that would be more likely to occur in a person who was not used to alcohol, someone who couldn’t handle his liquor. Jimmy O’Hearn was well able to do that! And Michael could not quite bring up an image of the smiling, pleasantly plastered Jimmy O’Hearn in a murderous rage. Michael had to admit, though, that he didn’t know Jimmy very well. But how well did he know any of them, really?

Michael

He wondered if he was being too bold. Kitty Curran was “just” a friend. Inevitably. But she was a woman friend and — no getting away from it — a beloved one. Michael had it in mind to offer her a little treat, to show her how happy he was to see her in Dublin. Seeing her was a refreshing change from hearing the dismal stories of the Christy Burke’s drinkers. Flowers might be going too far, but chocolates would be appropriate, wouldn’t they? There was nothing in canon law — or the discipline of celibacy — that said he couldn’t give chocolate to a woman! So there he was just before noontime Tuesday in Butler’s Chocolate shop in Grafton Street across from Stephen’s Green. There was a crowd forming behind him but he took his time. Should he hand-pick a selection or take one of the ready-made boxes? Well, the boxes looked lovely, and he knew every piece inside would be a treasure. Now, how big a box? In other words, how much could he afford to spend after he had splurged on all the new clothes?
Go big or stay home, O’Flaherty!
He chose the large ribbon-bedecked box of truffles, which set him back twenty-three punts. Smiling, he left the shop, sprinted to the corner, and hailed a taxi.

“The Mater, please.”

“Nothing too serious, I hope,” the cab driver said.

“Well, now, I’m not sure.”

“Best of luck to yeh then.”

“Thank you.”

Michael and the rest of the Halifax contingent had made plans to have lunch at the Stag’s Head. Kitty would be coming along as well, but she called to say she had to stop in to visit someone at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital first and did not know how long the visit would take. So the men agreed to meet her at the hospital.

The cab arrived at Eccles Street and pulled up in front of the magnificent stone hospital with its columns and rows of Palladian windows. Michael paid the driver and got out. When he entered the waiting room, he saw his friends sitting with two old people in wheelchairs. The patients both had matted grey hair and blankets across their knees. They could have been brother and sister, husband and wife, or just fellow inmates. The woman was hooked up to an IV on a pole. Michael had to laugh when he saw the face on Brennan Burke. Father Burke had never been able to hide his discomfort in a hospital. Michael cherished his role as comforter of the sick and dying, but Brennan seemed more at home with the homeless, the imprisoned — hard cases for sure, but easier for him to take than the sickly patient in a hospital bed.

Kitty introduced Michael to Fergal O’Herlihy and Mary Whelan. They both gave him toothless grins when he shook their hands. “Now what accounts for your stay in this fine building, Mary? Fergal?”

Mary began, “With me it started as an infection in my gums. Oh, the mess of it, let me tell you. You think you’ve seen pus! But the smell and the taste of it in your mouth, I tell you it was —”

“Excuse me, would you?” It was Brennan, tapping the cigarette pack in his shirt pocket. Was it a sudden craving for a smoke, or was he not able for a recitation of these people’s ills?

“I’ll join you, Brennan,” Monty said with haste, and the two of them bolted from the room.

Some of us can take it and some of us can’t
. Michael and Kitty commiserated with the patients until the other two returned and lingered without sitting.

“What’s that you have there, Mike?” Brennan asked.

He had spied the chocolates.

“It’s a box of candy, Brennan. Butler’s chocolates!”

“Oh, for me?” Kitty exclaimed.

“Ah, well, yes, as a matter of fact,” Michael replied. He could feel himself blushing. The more so when he realized from the look on her face that she had only been joking. She hadn’t thought they were for her at all. There was nothing for it now but to make his presentation. “I thought you might enjoy a little sweet.” He handed the box over.

“Lovely! Let’s tear it open!” She removed the ribbon, opened the top and, without even looking inside, offered the box to the sick people. Fergal picked one up, put it back, examined another, replaced it, and finally settled on one. For her part, Mary grabbed a handful, shoved one into her mouth, then thrust the handful over at Brennan.

“Chocolate?” she said, then raised a hand to wipe her mouth, from which the brown sweet substance dribbled onto her chin. Mixed with God only knew what bodily fluids.

“No, no, thank you, no,” Brennan insisted. Michael could have sworn he heard a snicker from Monty. Michael knew Monty found Brennan a little fastidious and enjoyed slagging him about it.

A couple of nurses passed by then, and Kitty waved the box at them. “Help yourselves, girls!” Finally Kitty took one herself.

Then she was saying her goodbyes. Michael did the same. They rose to go. And Kitty left the chocolates behind.

Michael had meant them as a gift for Kitty, had meant to present them to her with a bit of finesse, at an appropriate time. As it turned out, she had barely accorded them a glance before giving them away to the first taker. They had cost him twenty-three Irish pounds! He immediately chided himself for thinking that way, when Kitty had been so generous. Of course she was the kind of woman who would share whatever she had.

He made the mistake of mentioning it when they were out in the street. “That wasn’t much of a treat for you, Kitty.”

“Well, I could hardly keep them to myself, Michael. Next time you give chocolate to a woman, make sure you don’t do it under the eyes of hungry, sweet-deprived sick people and overworked nurses!”

Oh! That’s what he got for venturing into the unfamiliar terrain of plying a lady with chocolate! He hoped the others couldn’t see that he was flustered.

“Smooth, Kitty!” he heard Brennan saying.

“What?”

“A handsome, smartly dressed man buys you candy, and you don’t even thank him. Or give him a little peck on the cheek. I don’t imagine any more Butler’s truffles will be making their way to you in the next little while.”

“Oh! I —”

“Thy rebuke hath broken his heart!” Brennan was singing to her now. Michael recognized it from Handel’s
Messiah
. Oh God Almighty, how could that man sing so beautifully when making a little joke in the middle of a Dublin street? And wasn’t the Irish accent appropriate, given that the
Messiah
had had its premiere right here in Dublin? Michael stopped to take in the performance. Brennan stood with one hand on his heart, the other flung out to Kitty. She stared at him with undisguised admiration.

When the aria was done, he put his hands on her upper arms and said, “Now, show the man some appreciation, would you? Yes, we all admire you for sharing the wealth, but nobody in that hospital would be gorging themselves on
theobroma
— the very food of the gods — if it hadn’t been for Michael O’Flaherty!”

“Oh, Michael, I’m sorry. It’s just that, well, I never get any gifts. It’s not ‘poor little me,’ it’s just, well, the way it is.”

She moved forward, put her arms around him, and kissed him on the cheek.
All’s well that ends well
.

They made their way south along Mountjoy Street. Brennan halted beside a Georgian-style brick townhouse with multi-paned windows and a demi-lune fanlight over the bright yellow door. The house was three storeys high, topped with a large chimney pot. It was flanked by several identical houses.

“This is where I lived for my first three years,” Brennan said, “until my mother moved us to Rathmines. To a house identical to this one. She’d had enough of living, as she put it, right next door to the family pub. She made the move when the oul fellow was in the Joy, up there behind us. Bit of a surprise for him when he got out.”

Another of the Burkes in Mountjoy Prison. Well, Brennan had alluded to this, without quite saying it, after his father’s past had come back to him at the point of a gun in New York City. Michael tried to look as if this was the sort of thing he heard every day. And, since coming to Dublin, that was almost the case.

He said to Brennan, “Would it be fair to surmise that your father was not a man for surprises? Surprises like moving house when he was out of circulation?”

“That would be a fair assessment, Michael, yes. But my mother could always get him sorted.”

They walked a bit farther, and Michael pointed to the tall-spired church across St. Mary’s Place from Christy’s. “The black church,” he said.

“Now you’re not saying ‘black’ as a reflection of its Protestant character, I know, Monsignor,” Kitty said.

“No, Sister, certainly not. I heard they call it that because it turns black in the rain. Too bad people seem to think they can use it as a rubbish dump. They’ve piled every old bit of refuse under the sun there. Isn’t that right, Brennan?”

Brennan looked a little startled. Must have been lost in thoughts of his own.

“Black in the rain,” Michael prompted.

“Oh, right. Mmm.”

“Well, it won’t be turning black today,” Monty said. “How often do you see a perfectly sunny day like this in Dublin?”

“Oh, ye of little faith!” Kitty exclaimed. “We’re no strangers to the sun here in Dublin, are we, Brennan?”

“Sure you’re right, Kitty. We’re not unfamiliar with it,” Brennan agreed. “And that makes it a grand day for a walk to the Stag’s Head, where we can once again closet ourselves away from the healing properties of the sun and fresh air.”

Brennan

When they got to Dame Court, Maura MacNeil and the two children were waiting outside the elegant Victorian pub. They all went in together. The Stag’s Head was one of the most sumptuous pubs Brennan had ever seen — and he had seen his share of drinking spots — with its stained-glass windows, rich wood interior, and long mahogany bar topped with Connemara marble. Normie directed her baby brother’s attention to the mounted animal heads high on the wall, and the little fellow gazed at them in wonder.

They found a table and got the baby settled in a high chair, then they ordered stew and bangers and mash and pints of porter, and settled in for a relaxing time.

“Do you like my new shirt, Father?” Normie asked.

He hadn’t noticed it till now. She was wearing a pint-sized blue Dublin football jersey.

“Oh, that’s a great shirt, Normie. Have you joined the team? Should you be at practice instead of hanging around the pubs of Dublin?”

“Ha ha, very funny. I’m not on the team. I got it at a big store called Arnotts.”

“Oh. Right. Well it looks very nice on you.”

“Thank you. A lot of kids here wear them.”

“Yes, they do. You look right at home with your Dublin shirt and your red hair.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do.”

A sweet little girl she was. Her talk about football, though, brought unsettling memories of the conversation he had with Sammy Coogan after the match at Croke Park. Brennan had passed Coogan’s comments along to Finn but he had not heard another word about the young fellow who had disappeared around the same time as the Reverend Merle Odom. The lad was named Clancy, Brennan recalled, nephew of the Bishop of Meath. Brennan had never met the bishop but he knew something of his work; the Most Reverend Pádraig Aloysius Clancy was renowned as a biblical scholar. Was the Clancy family enduring the same agonies as the Odom family, and for the same reason?

Luckily, Normie distracted Brennan from his worries. She was cutting up tiny bits of lunch for Dominic and feeding them to him on a spoon. In between bits she regaled the group with a description of the sights she had seen in Dublin that morning, including her favourite gold jewellery in the world, which had been made four thousand years ago, displayed in the National Museum, and the most beautiful washroom in the world, in the National Library. “It’s got tiles on the wall in a pretty pattern and it has green and gold coloured glass, and comfy chairs! We should make our bathroom like that at home!”

“We should open a pub like this at home,” Monty said. “Brennan will be the bartender, I’ll be his apprentice, and Normie can do the decorating.”

“Can we? Please? We can make a fancy bathroom in it. I’ll do all the work, I promise!”

“Can’t guarantee it, sweetheart.”

“Aww, Daddy!”

“What caught your own fancy, Maura?” Kitty asked. “Have you seen anything of interest at all?”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin. But I certainly spent a long time with the exhibits relating to the Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War. The guns, the caps, the uniforms; I felt I was in granddad Christy Burke’s clothes closet! Am I right, Brennan? Did they relocate his closet to the National Museum?”

No. I relocated it myself, from the tunnel to the black church.

All he said aloud was “Did you notice whether it was jammed with skeletons? If so, it may have been Christy’s.”

“So what do you think, Brennan?” the MacNeil asked him. “All that business about the graffiti. Are you really convinced it has something to do with the Christy Burke Four? Or do you think it’s something political, relating to your family?”

He was saved from having to answer by Michael O’Flaherty. “Well, Leo Killeen has warned me to mind myself. He seems to think there is something political behind the whole thing. But I’m not convinced of that. Not everything that happens on this island is political! Particularly here in the South. But, whatever it is, we’re not getting very far in our inquiries.”

“How long has it been since the last incidence of graffiti?” Monty asked. “Three weeks? Nearly four. Do you suppose the problem might have just gone away, and there’s no need for any more investigation?”

“I think we’d best keep at it,” Brennan replied.

They all looked at him with interest, obviously waiting for more. But Brennan was not prepared to say any more, not prepared to reveal that the only reason the problem appeared to have gone away was that the vandal had been shot while delivering his last message, and that their project was in reality a murder investigation.

There was a long moment of silence, then Monty spoke again. “Let’s get back to politics and history.” He directed a pointed glance at Brennan. “I’m sure I’m not the only one in the room who would like to hear from Christy Burke’s grandson on the subject. So. Now that you’re on your native soil once again, Brennan, where do you stand?”