Death in Dublin - Peter McGarr 16 (16 page)
The photo could not have been taken too long b
e
fore, given her appearance. And whereas her husband’s face looked somewhat younger than hers—four or fi?ve years—his curly, blondish hair had also begun to gray. He was a tall man, thin and square with regular, if blunt, features of the sort that were called ruggedly handsome. McGarr picked up another of the photos.
Dressed in oilcloth and twill, and wearing a rain hat, he was holding open his shooting jacket to shield Kara from a strong wind that had fl?attened the heather by their feet. Obviously chilled, she was clutching the co
l
lar of her jacket and had leaned her head against his chest. Her smile was wan, but she seemed contented.
In his other hand he was grasping the barrel of what appeared by its shape to be a Purdy shotgun. Noreen and Fitz, her father, had owned several of the expe
n
sive guns. “Where were you here?”
“Skye.”
“When?”
“Three years ago. We were only married a year b
e
fore.”
He had either left her suddenly, leaving no trace, or had been somehow lost abroad, she had told him. “His name?”
“It was Dan. Dan Stewart.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“Here in Dublin. At an opening, in fact.” She brigh
t
ened but then looked off.
He knew what she wanted to say; the opening had been at Noreen’s gallery.
“First marriage?” McGarr set the photo down.
“For me. Dan was married before.”
Which surprised McGarr—that a woman so fetc
h
ing, charming, and obviously intelligent would not have married until she was—what?—nearly forty and perhaps beyond childbearing age.
“I know what you’re thinking. It’s rather late for marriage. But it’s not as though I didn’t have other o
f
fers over the years. It’s just that I had never really fallen in love before.”
“And you haven’t heard from him?”
“Not a word.”
“What does his business say? Didn’t you tell me he had been away on business?”
She shook her head. “They heard nothing from him either. He fl?ew to Yemen, checked into his hotel, went out for dinner, and was never heard from again. No note, no appointment in his scheduler, not a phone call to the front desk or on his cell phone.
“I hired a private investigator, who cost me most of my savings. He said Dan’s either dead or he just walked out on his life. And me.”
“It must have been—it must be—hard for you, not knowing.”
She cocked her head and again considered the pictures. “Oh, aye. At fi?rst all I could think of was him— what might have happened, how he might have suffered. And all the news out of that part of the world didn’t help much either. I did everything I could—contacted the Yemeni embassy in London, Arab organiz
a
tions. I even went there to see the hotel and collect his effects.
“I spent two weeks in a Yemeni bureaucrat’s outer offi?ce being served tea until I decided the joke was on me; I gave them a piece of my mind and began walking out. Only then was I invited in to see the offi?cial, who told me they had concluded Dan had run off with a
n
other woman—and could he take me to dinner?”
“I’m sure that was diffi?cult,” McGarr managed.
“But then, later—know what?” She turned her body to him and waited until their eyes met. “I began thin
k
ing of me—how long I would continue to wait, write letters, make phone calls, and console his parents. It was my loss too—the loss of weeks, months, years of my life. I had become obsessed. Nothing else ma
t
tered. My work suffered, as we know all too well.
“And then, curiously, I felt guilty about feeling so selfi?sh and fi?nally angry at myself for feeling guilty, if you know what I mean.”
McGarr did. The guilt he felt about the deaths of Noreen and Fitz had obscured or at least shadowed every other aspect of his life. He ejected the videotape, then reached for the case. When he straightened back up, he found her standing very close to him.
“If Dan came back tomorrow or fi?nally phoned me telling me where he was, I wouldn’t have him back. If he’s dead, well, I’m sorry, but I’ve grieved for him. If he’s alive, well, I’m equally sorry, but I’ve grieved for me.
“Look”—she waited until he looked into her eyes— “you and I are in the same situation. I liked what I knew about you and now, having got to meet you, I rather fancy who you are. I rather fancy you.”
McGarr tried to look away.
“No, don’t look away. Look at me.” With a hand she turned his chin. “When you held me this morning, it made me realize how much I need a man’s touch. Your touch. And I can tell you fancy me. Would you hold me again?” She raised her arms. “Please?” She was smiling, and the pupils of her jade-colored eyes were dark.
It was against everything that McGarr believed in about police work. But close, like that, he was breat
h
ing in her distinctive perfume—some mélange of... he didn’t know what. And he was feeling her warmth, her—was it?—excitement. There was a fl?ush in her cheeks. She pulsed her eyebrows once, as though to say, What about it?
Slowly, knowing it was wrong and actually frigh
t
ened that he could not help himself, McGarr placed his hands on the supple curves of her hips, which felt slick under the silk of the dressing gown, and drew her to him, her lips grazing the side of his face as their bo
d
ies met.
Tentatively, at fi?rst. Testing each other. Then, as he drew her closer, he felt her shudder, and she moved her face into the crook of his neck.
They remained there like that for a long moment in which McGarr wrestled with and tried to deny the comfort that the embrace was giving him, the desire he felt for her, and the near-heady lust that had welled up in him. In a way, it was making him feel almost ill.
There was how warm and soft she felt, the line of smooth yet downy skin leading from her neck onto her shoulder, the pressure of her thigh that now moved b
e
tween his legs as she drew her head back from him. “Kiss me.”
His eyes moved to her lips, which were full and well
formed. Her mouth was open in a half-smile with her eyes on his lips as well. “Go on, kiss me.”
When he tried, she moved her head aside. “No, not like that.”
He tried again.
“Nor like that. I want our fi?rst kiss to be mem
o
rable.” Slowly, her eyes rose to his and her smile faded.
Like that, with their eyes locked, their heads moved together and their lips met gently at fi?rst and then more completely, until their abandon was such that they staggered.
She had slipped her hand between the buttons of his dress shirt and onto his breast. “Come. Come into my bedroom.” Her lips darted for his, meeting them hard. “Let me make love to you.”
But McGarr, summoning all that he knew about himself and how he had conducted his life over the years, broke away from her. “I can’t, really. I couldn’t. I—” With the video in hand, he moved toward the chair, his hat, and the hallway that led to the door.
“You can’t because you’re afraid,” she said to his back. “And, worse, you’re in love with your guilt, the guilt you feel because of the way your wife and fathe
r
in-law died. It controls you. It rules you and makes you lust after revenge, doesn’t it?
“When I’m offering you this. Turn around. Look at me. I’m offering you love and a way out.”
At the door to the hallway, McGarr paused, knowing he should just keep on moving, knowing that—if he were to turn around—the turn would be a life turn. Nothing less.
“Turn around,” she repeated, her Scots burr now de
f
inite. “Like you, I don’t do this lightly. Turn for me. Turn for yourself.”
McGarr’s head went back, and his eyes searched the pattern of light on the ceiling of the hall. Off in the di
s
tance, the claxon of an emergency vehicle was soun
d
ing, and the wind was moaning through the eaves of the house.
He thought of how complicated his life had become as a single parent and head of an embattled agency. How in all probability it could not accommodate a
n
other and without question a most complete complic
a
tion—no, the most complete complication possible. And how, fi?nally, turning around would amount to turning his back on the decorum that had regulated his life for more than a quarter century.
He did not allow himself or any of his staff to b
e
come involved with principals in investigations. Ce
r
tainly Kara Kennedy, for all her beauty and openness with him, remained that. A suspect.
And yet McGarr could not keep himself from tur
n
ing around. As though being drawn by a force that he could not resist, he found his shoulders and head, his body, swinging toward her, all while another and di
f
ferent voice in the back of his mind was counseling, If you’re going to do this, do it right. If you’re going to love her and keep loving her, love her as well as you’re able. No half measures.
She had opened her dressing gown and was holding the plackets out at arm’s length to expose her body, which was naked and at once svelte but very womanly. “I want you,” she said as he approached her, “because you’re a good man.” And she virtually leaped into his arms.
At her fl?at in Coolock, Morrigan switched on the lights. With a phone receiver cradled between neck and
shoulder she almost immediately lowered the blinds and switched out the lights. She then waited an exact hour before stepping out again, the large handbag over her shoulder.
After scanning the cul-de-sac, Morrigan stepped into her car and pulled away. Because there were few cars on the road at the late hour, Bresnahan gave the woman a long lead before pulling behind her.
MCGARR AWOKE WITH A START. THERE WAS A HAND ON
his shoulder. He turned his head and found Kara stand
ing above him.
“You said you had to get going early. It’s half nine.”
With a tumult of confl?icting thoughts and emotions suddenly welling up in him—that he shouldn’t be there for any number of reasons, that he should have been home or at least called home before his daughter went to school, that he should presently be at his desk a
s
sembling whatever he would need when he presented the videotape to Jack Sheard, the commissioner, and perhaps even the taoiseach—he glanced at the patch of lowering sky that could be seen between the drapes, and then, with one sweep of his arm, drew her into the bed and on top of him.
An hour later he left for home, activating his cell phone and beeper as he moved through traffi?c. He had over a dozen messages on each of the devices, and he had only slipped the key in the lock of the front door when it opened.
“Where in the name of God have y’ been, man?” N
u
ala asked as he rushed by he
r
. “The phone has been rin
g
ing off the hook with this one and that—the commissioner, that fella Sheard, even the blessed taoiseach’s offi?ce. Bernie said if you didn’t surface by noon he’d put out an all-points on you. I’d ring him up fi?rst.”
While he was shaving in the toilet off the bedroom that Noreen and he had shared, Nuala appeared in the open doorway, his clothes of the night before in her hands. “Is there something I should know?”
In the mirror he glanced at her. “The Book of Kells was written on vellum, calfskin, not paper,” he said, trying to keep the shaving cream out of his mouth. “But there was a ‘facsimile edition,’ they call it—alike in every way—that was produced on paper, back in the nineties. It could be a page from that that he burned on the tape.”
She shook her head. “No—is there something else I should know?”
McGarr began shaving again. “Like what?”
“Like when you started wearing cologne.” She hefted the clothes. “She the one on the teley?”
McGarr lowered the razor and stared down into the basin, feeling with all the greater force what he had been stuffi?ng down all morning long—empty, vacuous, devoid of himself, the person he’d abandoned on the night before. But also he felt wonderful, as though he had put aside a great burden. He knew, of course, what it was.
With Kara Kennedy he had moved on, as Nuala he
r
self had been urging him, from Noreen. And it was the guilt he was feeling at having abandoned her that was making him feel so miserable. And in need of a drink.
“She’s beautiful, all right, and brilliant, it’s said. But next time, tell us. Maddie couldn’t take her breakfast, she was so worried.”
Turning his face, he applied the razor to the u
n
shaven cheek. In spite of lacking sleep, he looked as well as he had in ages, he judged—clear of eye, steady of hand; there was even a fl?ush in his cheeks. “Said by whom?”
Given her age, Nuala spent much of the day on the telephone or at lunch, and for whole decades Fitz and she had been connected to the very highest circles of Irish government and society.
“The papers, of course. The teley. That Pape bloke brushed right by them without a word. Anyhow, she’s much more telegenic.”
“What about
Ath Cliat
h
?”
“Wouldn’t you know they’re onto their ‘extra’ ed
i
tions again, calling it a national crisis that’s sure to bring the government down. Given the New Druids gang of thugs being behind it and Kehoe having foo
l
ishly brought Celtic United, their upstart party, into the government after the last election.”
Having no option but to step down, lacking a majo
r
ity in the Dail.
“Where’d they get that?”
“Sources, wouldn’t you know.”
“All by Orla Bannon, I imagine.”
“She the pretty little one with the sloe eyes and pukka smile?”
McGarr nodded.
“The very one. They have her picture on the front page, bragging about her ‘scoop,’ which, if true, sure it is.” She waited for McGarr to respond.
He fi?nished the cheek before saying, “Well, you saw the tape yourself.”
She tilted her graying head, and her eyes, which were becoming agatized with age, moved to the wi
n
dow. “But later I thought—wouldn’t it be a right fi?ddle to put together that tape, get a whopping big ransom, and blame those poor fools in North Dublin for the entire scam?”
Washing off the excess shaving cream, McGarr reached for a towel and moved out into the bedroom. “When you watch the tape again, look closely at the medallion-like things on the wall.”
In his closet he reached for a suit, shirt, and tie. Then he retrieved socks, underwear, and shoes, placing all on the bed.
“Well, go on. You can tell me. Me eyes aren’t what they once were.”
“They’re skulls, human heads. Nailed through the forehead to the wall with spikes maybe eighteen inches long.”
“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph—you don’t say.”
“But I do. Now, d’you suspect they’d wrussle up h
u
man heads just for a fi?ddle?”
Closing the door, he heard her talking to herself as she moved down the stairs. “The enormity of it, the o
b
scenity. I wonder if Grainne is at home at this hour.”
Driving into Dublin, McGarr began sifting through his phone messages, more than half of which were from Jack Sheard.
Beginning with a friendly bureaucratic mumble— “Peter, Jack Sheard here. We should communicate some time tonight to make sure our pins are in place. At your convenience, of course”—to “Where in hell are you, McGarr? You’re making a balls of this thing. What in Christ’s name was that second fi?asco out at CU headquarters? You’re to keep a low profi?le, do you hear me? This is a Code Four investigation, and the
bloody taoiseach wants you...us to report to his offi?ce in the Dail immediately.”
Which was pronounced “eee-mee-jit-ly,” as, Mc-Garr supposed, Sheard had been taught at Trinity. Mc-Garr had no idea what Code Four meant, but it sounded serious, like something out of the movies.
He checked the time of the call, which had come in only twenty or so minutes earlier. Ringing up his headquarters at Dublin Castle, McGarr asked Swords to phone Sheard and say he was going directly to Taoiseach Kehoe’s offi?ce.
“The man has been roaring at me all morning. Says he’s fi?ling papers to have my job.”
“Not to worry—I’ll take care of that. Any luck on the whereabouts of”—McGarr had to pause to reme
m
ber the names—“Mide, Morrigan, or Ray-Boy?”
“No, but with Sloane’s car—the big blue BMW?”
McGarr grunted.
“Bloodstains and threads of clothing were found on the right front bumper and grill.”
As though it might have been the car that had bumped off Derek Greene, the Trinity security guard who had died a fortnight before, freeing up Raymond Sloane to walk the rounds. “What about the fella b
e
hind the wheel?”
“Kevin Carney by name. Sheet runs to two pages. New Druid enforcer, it’s said. Caught somebody’s bu
l
let in the back of the head. Large caliber, fi?red from a rifl?e.”
Which none of McGarr’s team had been carrying.
“Speculation is—there was a sniper somewhere abouts. The only other thing we have is Sloane’s widow and two daughters, who went straight to the Bank of Ireland on College Green this morning. They
were there when the doors opened. We’re trying to run down why.”
“I gave Bernie a videotape last night. Tell him he can take it over to the Tech Squad lab and wait for the results. He’s to call me the moment they come in.” McGarr rang off and moved through the rest of his calls.
A message from Ward said, “Pape’s house on the Morehampton Road is mortgaged to the eaves. His credit is stretched with maxed-out cards and zero sums in bank accounts with formerly sizable balances.
“Travels extensively—Turkey, Malta, Thailand, and Myanmar recently. Likes women, the younger the be
t
ter. He was arrested in Malta in 1969 for hashish po
s
session. Four years ago, something in Spain. Ten years earlier it was LSD at Heathrow. Some more drug po
s
sessions, then only traffi?c offenses.
“Nothing unusual on the Kennedy woman that we could fi?nd. Yet. But it’s not as if she fl?oated up the Li
f
fey in a bubble.”
Pulling into the security checkpoint at Leinster House, the imposing Georgian-inspired buildings that were the seat of the Irish government, McGarr wo
n
dered if the Trevor Pape whom he had attempted to i
n
terview on the night before could possibly be capable of the theft of the books and Sloane’s murder.
Drugs, he knew, sometimes caused otherwise sane and intelligent people to attempt foolish things, but Pape had seemed too...scattered both at Trinity and later for the complexity of the theft. And even if tall, he was a slight man, surely not the hulking, black-hooded fi?gure in the video.
Nor could Kara be involved, McGarr was convinced. She was just too much the committed ac
a
demic and too altogether...fragile for anything like that.
Everything pointed all too obviously to the New Druids and Celtic United. Yet Sloane’s car might have been responsible for the death of Derek Greene, the Trinity security guard—whose corpse was now hea
d
less.
Finally, there was Sweeney, who claimed to be merely the messenger of the videotape. But who said he had watched it. And Sweeney was another animal altogether, McGarr knew all too well.
Why would the New Druids have chosen Chazz Sweeney, an avowed member of the archconservative Catholic sect Opus Dei, to be their messenger? If i
n
deed they had made the video. To ride herd on the p
o
lice and government? To make sure through
Ath Cliath
that a ransom was paid and the sacred books were secured?
A uniformed valet was waiting to take the car. But before McGarr got out, he rang up Ward, who said, “I know what you’re going to say, and I agree. Sweeney. Maybe it’s just our experience with him, but anything he’s involved in...” Ward let his voice trail off.
Manpower was the problem. Because of budget cuts, McGarr had only a handful of available staffers to put on the case. He could ask Sheard for help, but at the price of confi?dentiality. All his own people were rock solid.
“How could we follow Sweeney and not be known to be following him?” McGarr asked.
“I have an idea.”
“Discreet, I hope.”
“That, and electronic too.”
They did not need any further publicity, especially
involving Sweeney with the forum of
Ath Cliath
at his
disposal.
“Hear from Ruthie?”
“She said the woman—” Ward responded before b
e
ing cut off.
“Morrigan.”
“Spent the night at the second address near the North Wall.”
“She going in?”
“Last night the place was locked tight, and it has alarms everywhere. This morning, when the building opened to let in the employees on the fi?rst two fl?oors, they posted a guard on the door.”
“They?”
“The New Druids. See the papers?”
“Not yet.”
“Don’t.” Ward rang off.
But all three newspapers were laid out on a table in the anteroom of the taoiseach’s offi?ce. Whoever had taken the picture of Kevin Carney, the driver of the wrecked and shot-up BMW, spilling from the car had sold the roll of fi?lm to Reuters, who had in turn shopped it to all three of the morning papers.
Ath Cliat
h
’s banner headline said
COP-OUTIN
G
,b
e
low which was
MCGARR AMO
K
. Two paragraphs of story said McGarr had begun a “spree of violence not witnessed from a senior Garda offi?cer in decades with a temper tantrum at the home of the victim in the Tri
n
ity theft” and then continued on to Glasnevin, where “either his staff or two of his disgraced former Garda followers shot and killed the driver of the car, causing a near riot in the Celtic United stronghold.”
Orla Bannon’s column, “Trinity and CU Deaths
Linked,” was teased onto the centerfold jump and surrounded by more car photos. Mainly she repeated what McGarr had leaked to her regarding the ransom tape and its supposed New Druid connection with the addition of three CU offi?cials confi?rming that Raymond “Ray-Boy” Sloane Jr. was a CU adherent.
Stories by other reporters sampled “Celtic United Outrage” from its Dail delegation to the party faithful to rank-and-fi?le stalwarts, who were pictured shaking fi?sts with tattooed and well-muscled arms exposed.
