Obit (40 page)

We knew who shot Declan Burke, and why. Yet I could not rid myself of the feeling that there was something else going on. What did we know for sure? We knew about the waterfront gun heist in 1952, the senseless killing of Gerald Connors in prison, the alcoholic meltdown of Mr. Desmond and the slaying of Nessie Murphy. We had suspected a Mob connection but, as it turned out, all Declan had done was borrow money from them and work for a few years in one of their nightclubs. He knew the people there, and they helped us unravel much of the story. The fact that he stole guns before the Mob could steal them seemed to be a minor irritation even to Patrizio Corialli.

So, if it wasn’t a Mob enforcer Sandra had seen confronting Declan at his house all those years ago, who was it? He had accused Declan of stealing, of slipping an envelope into his pocket. What had the man said? “How could you sink so low?” To me, that suggested Burke had been robbing the blind, stealing from the poor or embezzling money from a charity. I did not see him as a man who would do that.

We were missing something. And it centred on Cathal Murphy,
who was really Charlie Fagan. Whose sister had been murdered and whose papers had been filched from the apartment. Lieutenant O’Brien was convinced Fagan continued to smuggle arms out of the United States and into Ireland. Yet, with the exception of one incident, the police were never able to catch him. O’Brien believed Fagan was using a courier, presumably to deliver money to the arms suppliers. Was Declan the courier? What, then, were we to make of Fagan’s clandestine meeting with the man from Washington, DC? Could the fact that O’Brien never caught Fagan running guns again mean he had given it up? That he had turned
FBI
informant?

If so, and if Declan was his courier, what was Declan passing on? Was he an informer too? Was that even remotely possible? Why not? He had been run out of Ireland on false accusations of being a traitor to the
IRA
. Was this his revenge against the organization? If so, was Leo Killeen aware of it? Or was this Fagan’s revenge on Declan? Declan had stolen the love of his life, Teresa Burke, though more than likely Declan had not even been aware of Fagan pining in the shadows of Stephen’s Green. But Fagan’s passion continued to burn and it drew him all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. He still followed Teresa around after he immigrated to the States. Could he have set Declan up to take the risk of passing information to the
FBI
on Irish Republicans operating on American soil? It was beginning to sound plausible, but what evidence did I have?

I got up and grabbed a pencil and paper. I tried to turn my mind to things I had heard but ignored or failed to appreciate until now. What did I know about Murphy/Fagan, aside from what I had heard from Nessie? He lived like a monk, devoted only to Roman Catholicism and Irish Republicanism. He had no friends; he did not go out with co-workers for an end-of-day pint, by the sound of things. His day job was as a maintenance man, no, a shipper in a manufacturing plant. He went to Mass every day. I wondered whether the priest who conducted the funeral knew anything about the man he was burying. Patrick said there was an older priest who spoke. That might be a lead. But what church was it? Patrick didn’t say. I would give him a call, but not at this time of night.

Then I remembered Lieutenant O’Brien mentioning a church. The police had followed Fagan to Mass a few times at Saint — Saint
What? This at least was one of the conversations I had taken notes on, and I dug them out. Saint Bridey’s. Bridey, as I knew very well, was a nickname for Brigid. Wasn’t there also a Saint Bride? I would check tomorrow. But who really cared what church Murphy/Fagan attended if there was no connection with Declan? It seemed I had had a conversation with someone on this very subject. Saint Kieran’s of the Crime Scene was the Burke family’s church and they had always gone there. Who was telling me? Bridey of course. She had gone to high school at Saint Kieran’s and had Brennan as a teacher. So even if there was a Saint Brigid’s or Bride’s or Bridey’s — Bratty’s. Somebody had made a joke about Saint Bratty’s. But the details had slipped my mind. I was too tired to concentrate. I scribbled a few more notes and climbed into bed.

†

As I resumed my normal work life and what passed for a normal family life, New York receded from my mind. Until I got a call from Brennan a few days after my return.

“Good evening, Father Burke. What’s new in the gentle world of music and prayer?”

“You’ll never guess who’s coming to town.”

“Who?”

“The oul divil himself.”

“Not your father! Confession time?”

“I doubt it.”

“How long is he staying?”

“Coming Saturday for three or four days.”

“What’s the story?”

“Didn’t say. Just: ‘Meet me at the airport and get me a room at the Lord Nelson.’ He won’t even hear of staying here at the rectory. The Lord Nelson — funny when you think of it, isn’t it?” There was a certain irony in a hotel named after a British warrior harbouring a man with Declan’s
IRA
past. “Let’s hope me oul da doesn’t come with a bag full of Irish play-dough and blow it up.”

“That sort of thing is frowned upon here.”

“You know they blew up Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin in 1966. The
’
RA
. But I don’t imagine that’s why he’s here.”

“Forget the hotel. Bring him here.”

“I’ll see what he has to say about it.”

†

When I arrived at the office the next morning my secretary, Tina, told me I had just missed a call. “A guy from New York. Said his name was Pat Burke. You don’t have to call him back but he faxed this to you.”

“Thanks, Tina.”

The phone was ringing when I got to my desk, so I put the fax down and picked up the receiver. It was Maura. “I’m taking the kids to Cape Breton tomorrow.”

“What for?”

“Funeral back home. It’s on Monday but I’m going for the weekend. And I’d like Tom and Normie to see everyone.”

“Who died?”

“Old Uncle Joe. You remember him. He was ninety. Smoked and swilled liquor all his life and didn’t have a sick moment till he dropped dead last night.”

“Who’s Uncle Joe?”

“Have you never listened to a word I’ve said the whole time I’ve known you? I don’t have time to fill you in. Read the obit!”

“There’s that word again.”

“We’re all a little skittish about the obituary page these days, Collins, but read it. I’ll call you later and let you know our plans.” Click.

Who the hell was Uncle Joe? Her father, Alec, came from a family of eleven, but I didn’t remember a Joe. Her mother’s family only had five kids; they were regarded with some suspicion by their fellow Catholics in Cape Breton. No Joe there either, I thought. Maybe somebody’s husband, though I thought I’d met them all. I placed a call to our receptionist and asked for the waiting room copy of the
Chronicle Herald.
Then I turned to the fax from New York. It was a brief news story dated April 10, 1991. Yesterday. Patrick’s name was scribbled at the top.

The
FBI
is refusing to confirm that it has teamed up with the
NYPD
in the investigation of the murder of an elderly woman in Williamsburg last month. But sources close to the investigation say the Bureau became involved when it was learned that the victim, Neasa Mary Murphy (formerly Fagan), 74, was the sister of Cathal Murphy, who died late last year. The
FBI
had “more than one file” on Cathal Murphy, according to the source. Neasa (Nessie) Murphy was found bludgeoned to death in her ground-floor flat Easter Sunday night, after police received an anonymous call. Police say it’s likely she had been killed the night before. A department spokesman says it appears that robbery was the motive, but it is possible there was a connection between the woman’s death and that of her brother.

So the Feds were involved. And were denying their involvement. No real surprise there if Cathal had been informing to the
FBI
or some other agency about
IRA
activity on American soil. I hoped there had not been any agents watching Nessie’s house and witnessing my ignominious visit to the scene.

I turned to the obituary page of the
Herald.
Allan James “Uncle Joe” MacKenzie, ninety-one, of Glace Bay. All right, he wasn’t a Joe at all. Perhaps not even a relative. Cape Breton was justly famous for its nicknames, though this one would pass unremarked in a province with names like Maggie in the Sky and Father Alec the Devil. “Uncle Joe spent all of his working life underground, first in the Phalen Seam and then in No. 26 Colliery. From the age of 17 he took an active interest in journalism and was a contributor to the
Maritime Labor Herald
until it suspended publication in 1926. Joe was back in print three years later with the
Nova Scotia Miner.”
That, I knew from my study of history, was a staunchly communist publication. Which might explain how the MacNeils knew him so well. The obit said Joe had toured the Soviet Union with a miners’ delegation in 1930. Hence his nickname, I supposed, after “Uncle Joe Stalin.” I wondered whether he had stayed loyal to the party through the twists,
turns, contradictions and purges of the mid-twentieth century. How did he get along with young Alec the Trot(skyite) MacNeil, Maura’s father? I put the paper aside; I had done my homework; if she called, I had the facts.

She did indeed call that evening, and I slipped a reference to Uncle Joe into the conversation, hoping to impress her with my memories of her family and friends. If she was impressed she didn’t let on, but she filled me in on the plans. She and the kids would be driving to Cape Breton right after school the next day, which was Friday. I got into the car and drove to the house on Dresden Row to say goodbye. Much to my surprise, Maura sat down with me and gabbed about Uncle Joe, his family, the music that would be played at the funeral, the rum-fuelled debates between Joe and Alec the Trot over how best to serve the Revolution; it was almost like old times. Maybe there was hope for us after all. I decided to make a move — not now, but next week after she returned from Cape Breton. I would call and ask her out to dinner. If she said she was busy, I would refrain from making a remark of any kind, and would simply suggest going out on a night of her choosing; she could let me know. I said goodbye to Tom and Normie, and left the house.

I was restless after that so I put some blues on the car stereo and went for a cruise. I headed, as I often did, to Point Pleasant Park, where I sat in the car and watched a gargantuan container ship making its ponderous way into port. I remembered the consternation with which the first containers were greeted in certain quarters on the waterfront. A bit of pilferage from incoming ships had been part of life on the docks; now everything was sealed up in containers the size of box cars. Not so in the days when Cathal Murphy and his accomplices were sending shipments of guns over to Ireland. Why had the police not been able to catch him after that one incident? He must have stopped meeting his suppliers directly. Taken on a courier, according to Lieutenant Shammy O’Brien, to deliver the money. If that courier was Declan, where did they meet? Murphy/Fagan had a limited range of operation. He went to work, he went home, he went to church. He rarely set foot in a pub. O’Brien said they watched the factory and did not see anything amiss. Of course it could have been a co-worker who did the running for Murphy, but then wouldn’t the
police eventually have cottoned on to this person as an associate of arms smugglers? Maybe not. I made a mental note to find out something about Murphy’s place of employment. What was the name? Des Ailes? French for “wings.” Desailes Corp. Aviation supplies. Were they still in business? I would give Terry Burke a call and see if he had heard of them. But I could not free myself of the suspicion that Declan was the courier. Old Nessie had left me with the clear impression that there was more to this than Brennan and I had been able to figure out. Surely Declan had not been meeting Murphy/Fagan at the Williamsburg apartment Fagan had by himself, not after the police searched it. That left me with Murphy’s other regular destination, his church. Saint Bridey’s or Saint Brigid’s, if I was remembering my conversation with O’Brien accurately. But even there, O’Brien had said, nothing was amiss.

Still, there was something that had come to me a while ago. Some play on the saint’s name. Saint Bratty’s. That’s what I remembered. I had asked Brigid about it, and she said the family had always gone to Saint Kieran’s. Yet I had seen the words Saint Bratty’s scribbled — right, I had it — scribbled in crayon across a Saint Brigid’s collection envelope in the Burkes’ house. It was in the attic, the day I found the bank records suggesting blackmail. So somebody had been singing from a different hymn book. I went back to the story Patrick had told me about Francis running away as a child, hiding in the family car; he had ended up at Mass. Declan had left the house by himself, driven a long distance, and gone to church, a church where Francis was unable to find the toilets. An unfamiliar church. And when Declan found out Francis was along for the ride, he didn’t cuff the little fellow’s ears and give him hell; he just agreed that neither of them would mention it. Declan didn’t want anyone to know he’d been to . . . Sunday Mass. Did that make any sense? I put my car in gear and drove home. I had some calls to make first thing in the morning.

†

After clearing my desk of a few tedious matters the following day, I called Terry Burke’s number and got Sheila on the phone. Terry would be back from a layover in Frankfurt later in the day and would
return my call. I told Sheila I was wondering whether Desailes Corp. was still in business, and whether Terry knew anything about it. I agreed with her that it was unlikely. He flew the planes; he didn’t build them. I rang off and called directory assistance in New York for the number of Saint Brigid’s Church. It turned out to be in Bay Ridge. My map told me that was in Brooklyn, across from Staten Island, quite a ways from anywhere I had been during my travels in the outer boroughs. I dialled the number, and asked for the parish priest. But what I really wanted was to get through to the older priest, the man in the walker, who had spoken at Cathal Murphy’s funeral. It took some effort but I finally had the older man on the phone, in a home for retired priests in Brooklyn. Father Grogan was a little deaf so I adjusted my volume.