Death in Dublin - Peter McGarr 16 (30 page)
“Into the bargain, I lost an eye, the surgeons tell me, seven million quid total, and but for the Garda Siochana—or, let me amend that—but for an already disgraced senior offi?cer of the Garda Siochana—the intrepid Kara Kennedy, truly a keeper of old man
u
scripts, would still be alive. I suppose we can take solace in the knowledge that she died, God love her, retrieving the greatest single treasure of the Irish people and in that way she’s both a martyr and a p
a
triot.”
Sweeney again toked from the cup.
“And speaking of patriots, none of this”—his large paw swept the table—“would have been possible wit
h
out the Christians and patriots who stepped up to
fi?
nance this great effort. Not for nothing was it done. Never, not if it takes years of toil and litigation, will we allow these icons of the Catholic Church to reside where they were lost.
“And don’t think”—he fi?nished the cup—“don’t think the cowboys and gunsels of the Garda Siochana won’t see me in court. I’ve a mighty big bone to pick with them.” He cast a hand to one side, where Jack Sheard had stepped beyond the reporters and was moving toward Sweeney with several other offi?cers b
e
hind him.
Questions were barked at Sweeney until one voice was allowed to continue. It was Orla Bannon. “Can you or won’t you tell us exactly where and how the e
x
change was made? And how you were injured?”
“I don’t take questions from uncredentialed repor
t
ers.”
“Here’s mine.” She reached for the lanyard and photo IDs hanging between her breasts.
“They’re no longer valid. You’re sacked.”
Shocked, the others turned to her.
Although her smile seemed genuine, there was a fl?inty look in her dark eyes. “I think that would be u
n
wise.”
“That’s why you’re no longer employed—your jud
g
ment is impaired.”
“At least for me, it’s only my judgment, as judged by you,” she shot back, and the crowd laughed.
Sheard had reached the microphones. “This event is over. We’re confi?scating the stolen property, and Mr.
Sweeney will be accompanying us for the purpose of an interview and debriefi?ng.”
“I will not,” said Sweeney, swirling his heavy sloped shoulders.
Turning to him, Sheard said something under his breath, and the others led him away.
Sheard stepped to the mikes again. “After our inte
r
view, Mr. Sweeney will of course be at liberty to a
n
swer your questions, should he decide to do so.”
“What do you know about...?”
the others began shouting, but Sheard moved off after Sweeney. Other Gardai were taking possession of the books, which, McGarr supposed, would be held on the pretext of b
e
ing evidence, until Trinity sued for their return.
“Shouldn’t you be up there?” asked a voice behind him.
It was Ward. “Got something for you.” He handed McGarr a sheaf of folded paper, explaining that he was on his way to spell Ruthie on the stakeout of 24 Spa
n
cel Court, Ranelagh. He’d spent most of the day in his offi?ce on the computers, researching Daniel Stewart, Kara Kennedy, and Jack Sheard.
“Why Sheard?”
Ward’s smile was more a baring of white, even teeth. “You mean, beyond his being a self-serving prick who’s as much as ruined four good careers? Well”—he glanced back up at the television—“haven’t you ever wondered where his suits, cars, houses, and so forth come from, when he was not making any more money than we were?”
McGarr had, and more than once. “I heard talk that the wife has money. Didn’t they meet at Trinity?”
Ward tapped the papers. “It was only talk. Her f
a
ther, Kenneth Reynolds, is a retired Presbyterian minister in Larne with a modest house, an old car, and a small pension.
“I’d expected to fi?nd reams of account information and mountains of debt.” Ward shook his head. “Every so often Sheard gets this wad of cash, or so it seems, and he pays off his debt—over forty thousand pounds’ worth in the last six months.”
“Stocks, bonds?”
Ward shook his head. “Unless he’s doing the Ca
y
man Island thing. But if he owned any European or American shares, I would have found them, as I did for Sweeney and Stewart.”
“What about the law? He’s a solicitor. Maybe he makes use of his contacts and moonlights that way.”
“I thought of that and examined court records and fi?lings. He hasn’t submitted a property or title transfer or fi?led a brief or will in a decade. Conclusion?”
McGarr waited; he had his own idea about Sheard.
“Either he’s into graft big-time in one of his su
p
posed ‘corporate’ investigations that O’Rourke thinks he’s so skilled at, or somebody with a lot of money has more than a passing interest in Jack Sheard’s prospects in the Garda.”
“What about Dublin Bay Petroleum?”
“It’s a Panamanian entity, owned solely by Stewart. A brokerage that bought and sold on the spot market, but nothing that would have made him rich.”
Not like 55 million quid and getting rid of an u
n
wanted wife. Or was McGarr being naive about the part that Kara had played?
But her story about her missing husband—traveling to Yemen and petitioning that government—had all
rung true to McGarr. Also, there was the call to Stewart’s mother. “And Kara?”
“She had a small amount in her savings account, a checkbook balance of under one thousand Euros, and about thirty-fi?ve thousand in a retirement program run by Trinity College. But not one debt that I could fi?nd.”
“Any joint account with the husband?”
Ward studied McGarr’s face before shaking his head. “You shouldn’t fault yourself. The husband obv
i
ously used her. Why else would he have killed her? They murdered Gillian Reston, tried to kill Ray-Boy Sloane, and were either responsible or complicit in the deaths of Derek Greene and Raymond Sloane. Their entire intent was to leave no potential touts, to pare the take down to themselves alone. And that’s Pape, who’s the only one left alive.”
Perhaps only because he’d been taken into custody by Sheard. And named as a conspirator. “But Pape has a big problem.”
Ward canted his head and followed McGarr’s gaze to the television screen, where, felicitously, Pape was shown debouching from the Trinity Library right after the theft had been discovered. With head raised, he was staring down his long patrician nose at the assembled photographers and cameras.
“Even so, I don’t think we can doubt for a moment that his mentality was beyond hatching the scheme, and we both know addicts take chances. The drug problem aside, he’s not a stupid man.
“Maybe he holds the Book of Kells in contempt, but he spent his life as a librarian, and he owns or owned a facsimile copy.”
Like what was probably blown up on Iona, thought McGarr. Much of the confetti was brightly colored.
“My bet? If those books”—Ward pointed at the tel
e
vision—“are genuine and undamaged, Pape was de
fi?
nitely behind the crime.”
“Then who just made the exchange with Sweeney?”
“Ray-Boy?”
Not if, as Ward himself and Bresnahan thought, he was at 24 Spancel Court, Ranelagh, and had not come out. Also, it could not have been Ray-Boy with Dan Stewart on Iona.
The business was a storefront in a minimall—nails, tanning, and perhaps sex, Bresnahan had decided after her fi?rst fi?ve minutes parked across the busy main street.
Nearly all the customers were male and not of the sort who looked as though they required a manicure for fi?ne dining or a big meeting with an important client. Most were working-class yokes, some of whom looked like they’d had a few jars. The two women who ventured inside took a quick look round and left.
The only customer who looked like he belonged now stepped out holding a cell phone to his ear. Tall, maybe still in his twenties, he was wearing designer eyeglasses, an expensive gray pinstriped double-breasted suit with a pearl-gray tie, and a tall fedora— something a bit like a homburg. He moved stiffl?y toward a long silver BMW with gold wheel covers, rather like the car that had been destroyed outside New Druid headquarters on the Glasnevin Road.
A lorry pulled past Bresnahan, obscuring her view
for a moment. But when the BMW moved by, she could just see through the tinted windows that he had something like a bit of bandage plaster on the underside of his nose. Which, it occurred to her too late, might be concealing the hole for a ring.
SHEARD’S HOUSE WAS NESTLED IN A CROOK OF THE
Dublin Mountains, part of a rather new housing estate of pricey homes on large lots with fi?ne views of the city below. Dublin was fully lighted now at 7:30, as far as the eye could see.
Neo-Georgian in style, the dwelling was a rambling red-brick affair all on one story with arched windows and a four-car garage. Parked on the drive was a rather new Volvo and a Maloney’s Catering van with two young men in white ties and tails carrying silver pla
t
ters of food into the house.
Knowing Sheard could not possibly be home after Sweeney’s press conference about the books, with r
e
porters interviewing him and all, McGarr slipped the Garda-issue Glock he’d been carrying under the seat of his Cooper and got out.
Every room was lit, and with the front door open, he simply walked in, noting the quality furnishings and the bar that had been set up in the largest room, which looked like the lounge in a select hotel. The portraits on a hall table were of Sheard and his wife, Maeve— McGarr thought her name might be—and their three
children. Towheads all fi?ve of them, they looked like a happy family out of a soap opera.
It took him a while to fi?nd the kitchen, where the catering team was obviously setting up for a party. And there too stood the blond wife wearing an apron over a form-fi?tting black dress, directing their efforts.
“May I intrude?” McGarr asked, holding out a card. “You’re probably not aware that your husband just saved my life, he might tell you later. It all happened so fast. I’m here to thank him.”
She looked down at the card. “Peter McGarr?”
He nodded.
“Well, Jack has always said you were his model, the very kind of policeman he wanted to be. And is.”
She was a natural blond whose skin carried a buff sheen that seemed to glow. With pale blue eyes, regular features, and an angular body, Maeve Sheard was one of the better-looking people who McGarr had cast his eyes upon in some time.
“Do you expect Jack soon?”
“Oh, yes. Of course. Within the hour, guests are a
r
riving.”
“You’re having a party, I can see. Your birthday? His?”
She smiled and shook a head bedizened in comely golden waves. “Jack just felt like having the neighbors over to celebrate, don’t you know?” Her brow fu
r
rowed, perhaps only now remembering what McGarr’s experience had been over the last few days. “Would you be having anything? Let me get you a drink.”
McGarr smiled and followed her pleasant curves and good legs to the bar in the living room.
“Gorgeous place you have here,” McGarr co
m
mented, as his drink was being readied. “With a view to die for. When did you have the house built?”
“Oh, nearly seven years gone now, after the birth of my fi?rst son.”
“I like the lines, the proportions. Was it architect-designed?”
She nodded and rested an elbow on the tall bar in a way that fl?ared the radical angle of her chest.
“And the furnishings—I admire your taste. It all must have cost a packet.”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes. “I see what you’re ge
t
ting at. Jack inherited a fair amount of money upon the death of his father about a decade ago. And then, he’s so resourceful.” Her smile was utterly guileless. “He bought this house from a man who was in legal pro
b
lems and required representation both in and out of tax court.
“Jack’s fi?rst preference in regard to work is, like yours I should imagine, the police. But he’s also a s
o
licitor.” Her hand came up to her pretty mouth. “Oh, dear, I shouldn’t have said that either. I hope you’re not offended. I only now remembered the diffi?culties you’re in.”
McGarr looked down into the drink and shook his head.
“Well, anyway, Jack just arrived.” She pointed to the bay windows. Car headlamps had appeared on the driveway, and a large Audi swung into the fl?oodlights by the garage. They watched as Sheard, pulling his large frame out of the car, advanced on McGarr’s Cooper and looked down at the Garda shield that was displayed in the windscreen. Pivoting, he made for the house.
“I’d better tell him you’re here.” She moved toward the hallway.
McGarr waited, hearing, “Where is he?” from Sheard.
She said something inaudible to him.
“I don’t care. He has no place in my home.” He then appeared in the doorway. “You. What are you doing here?”
McGarr shrugged. “Curiosity. I wanted to see for myself how you live.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I wanted to see how you live.” Mc-Garr let that sit for a moment. “I’m also interested in why, when you learned where Stewart was, you didn’t bring him in immediately. And why you were alone when I got there. No support, no backup.”
“Isn’t it enough I saved your bloody life?” The wife now appeared beside him, but Sheard raised an arm, as though to bar her from entering the room. “Go see if everything’s ready while I get rid of this yoke.” Sheard lumbered forward with his big-shouldered gait, the fi?st of his right hand actually clenched.
He stopped within inches of McGarr, looming over him. “You have great bloody cheek coming here when, you should know, you’re now wanted for questioning. You’ll be charged, and you’re going to prison, count on it.”
McGarr smiled and looked down into his drink. “Well, at least it won’t be for tax fraud.” He glanced up into Sheard’s pale blue eyes. “You never inherited any money to purchase this place, and your wife’s father is a poor parson in the North. Nor did the owner of this property ever need your legal help. In fact, there’s no
record of your having functioned in any way as a solicitor in over a decade.
“The more important record is your failure to pay a farthing of taxes on any of the money that fl?oated all of this.
“No.” McGarr raised the glass and drank from it. “Miraculously, you just seemed to surface with cash, whenever necessary.
“The Stewart matter? I’ve got Bresnahan and Ward working on that—phone calls in particular.” McGarr watched Sheard’s ears pull back and his nostrils fl?are. “Swords? He tells me there’s no record of you or any of your staff reporting Stewart’s address or even hin
t
ing that he was a part of your inquiry.” He held the man’s searing gaze.
“I should have let him kill you.”
McGarr nodded. “I’d call it a tactical error. But you’d come there to kill him anyway, and street cop has never been your strong suit, Jack. You’re more the camera class of fella. And good at it, I’ll hand you that.”
McGarr fi?nished the drink, set the glass on the bar, and stepped around Sheard. “As those who actually practice the law say, ‘Be seeing you in court, Solicitor.’ Perhaps you have skills in that direction. For your fa
m
ily’s sake, you should hope so.”
But McGarr only got halfway across the Oriental carpet.
“McGarr.”
He turned to fi?nd Sheard holding a handgun.
“Ah, Jack, isn’t that a cliché?”
“What have you done with this?”
“Nothing. Yet.” He studied Sheard’s features, which
appeared transformed—eyes widened, brow furrowed. He was perspiring.
McGarr reached into his jacket and pulled out the sheaf of papers Ward had given him. “But it will soon be on its way. Remember my assistant Hugh Ward? The one you insisted be cashiered? You can thank him for this. Irony is, he put it all together, he did, with the skills he’s learned since you got him sacked. With the same skills at which you’re supposed to be expert— white-collar crime. How does it feel to be hoist on your own petard, Jack?”
McGarr pulled out his cell phone. “Like to give him a call? Need his number?”
Sheard only stared down at the papers, his color now high.
“But none of this need happen. You know who I want—Sweeney.” McGarr turned for the door.
“McGarr!” Sheard roared, pulling back the slide of the automatic. “It’s not too late for your death. I’ll say you came out here and assaulted me. Your hatred of me, your professional envy is well known. I’ll say you and your team of lawless operatives have been stalking me for weeks now, digging into my affairs, using the power of your offi?ce to conduct an illegal investigation. And when you couldn’t fi?nd anything, you came here in a rage and pulled a gun. People will understand how that could happen. There’s your wife and father-in-law and the debacle over on Iona that got Kara Kennedy killed. And you an old man falling apart.”
McGarr stopped in the archway to the hall. “Jack, you’re right on all scores. I am an old man, and my wife and father-in-law are dead. Iona was a debacle twice over, since Kara lost her life and the money appears to be gone, although we both know it isn’t. What
was your share, Jack? How much were you to get out of it?
“And sure, I’ll agree—my staff can be lawless, and you should count on it. You could shoot me. But you won’t, because you’d be handing yourself a death se
n
tence. And we can agree on something.” McGarr waited a moment before turning around.
Sheard had lowered the gun. “Who else knows, apart from Ward?”
“Bresnahan and McKeon, who will also keep their counsel, if you give me Sweeney and proof.”
“But they’ll always have it hanging over me. I’ll a
l
ways be under their gun.” His eyes fell to the object in his hands.
“As long as you remain in the Garda.”
Slowly Sheard’s eyes moved up to McGarr. “As well, there’s himself. And he’s—”
“Mortal,” said McGarr.
If anonymity were possible in Ireland, it would reside in Kinsale, a harbor town in South Cork. Several d
e
cades earlier, Continental yachtsmen had discovered its deep-water harbor and neat rows of eighteenth-century houses lining the waterfront.
The ensuing real estate frenzy brought trendy resta
u
rants, boutiques, yacht brokerages, and further foreig
n
ers to the quaint maritime community. Before the economic boom of the nineties, it was said few Irish could afford to live there and that the town should be run from New York by the United Nations.
Pubs had been closed for about an hour, by the time Peter McGarr slowed his Cooper and rolled into the narrow streets by the harbor that were nevertheless still busy with traffi?c and window-shoppers and others on
footpaths. Clubs, restaurants, and the after-hours bistros would still be open. Large yachts in the harbor were ablaze with light.
Finding a legal parking place, McGarr nevertheless lowered his Garda shield, not knowing how long it would take and not wanting to be clamped or towed.
Switching off the car, he paused for several m
o
ments to steel his resolve. It was not a court of law he would be conducting, neither a tribunal nor an inte
r
view. What he was about—he told himself, twisting the rearview mirror to chance a look at himself—was an interrogation of the sort that would get at the truth, one way or another. After a summary judgment would come the penalty phase.
Glancing at himself in the mirror, he was shocked by what he saw. He was pasty, haggard, and decidedly old, with bloodshot eyes and a grizzled beard. A mu
s
cle at the corner of his right eye was twitching. Pulling the Glock from under the seat, he tucked the handgun under his belt, reminding himself of Noreen, Fitz, and Kara Kennedy. He opened the door and stepped out.
It was chilly, with a brisk wind sweeping in off the harbor and the streets damp from a recent shower. Mc-Garr turned up the collar of his jacket and leaned into the blast, as he passed down a line of shops looking for the address Sheard had given him, a residence, he a
s
sumed, over a business, which was Sweeney’s pr
e
ferred modus vivendi.
While anything but reticent when honing his pe
r
sonal image, Sweeney was otherwise reclusive in his personal life—sleeping in his offi?ce at the
Ath Cliath
newsroom, before that on a cot in a back room of his run-down building on the Dublin quays where his su
p
posed “merchant bank” was headquartered. Or here, in a building that was just off a main business street— narrow, tucked between two more imposing structures. In spite of his millions.
McGarr stepped out into the street and looked up at the facade and its windows, which were shuttered and lightless. If Sweeney were there, he did not want an
y
body to know.
When McGarr stepped back onto the footpath, there was a fi?gure before him.
“Hiya, stranger—where you been? Come ’ere and give me a hug, I’m feckin’ freezin’.” It was Orla Ban-non who stepped into him, wrapped her arms around his body, and placed her head on his chest.
McGarr did not resist. On his cheek, her glossy dark hair felt soft and warm, and he breathed in the pleasant odor of whatever shampoo she had used.
