Sign of the Cross (42 page)

“Tanya Cudmore,” Eileen announced in a voice that was all business. “Same thing pretty much. My pretext for her was something about financial assistance through St. Bernadette’s for bereaved families. Good thing I set it up on the phone. I wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face in person. Bereaved, ha! ‘What kind of financial assistance, Ms. Darragh?’ How about this: not living long enough to have to pay another month’s rent, you worthless child killer! I warned Tanya not to tell anyone about the offer because other relatives, greedy ones like the child’s bereaved mother, for instance, might want the same. She fell for it and came for the secret rendezvous. I said: ‘Excuse me, Tanya. I have to try on this raincoat. I only have one more day to return it if it doesn’t fit. The papers for the assistance program are there on the table. Is the light okay there?’ Whack, and whack again. One less wicked stepmother in the world. She got the initials and the crucifix too. Credit where credit is due. Of course, I only had one raincoat left so I had to hose it down to get any traces of my clothes off it. It was still wet when I put it on her. Another two drunks stagger out of the frat house in the wee hours. Same routine with the body drop. Same cleanup. Same lack of suspicion directed my way. And how could it be otherwise? They couldn’t pin the Rae murder on you, but there was no room for doubt when it was Janeece’s stepmother.”

Brennan sat there, miserable, shaking his head. Then the telephone shrilled, and all three of us jumped. Eileen got up and answered it. “Oh, hi, Marguerite. No, no trouble. Dinner is long over. I have some friends in this evening.” Brennan and I exchanged glances. “Uh-huh. Both folders are on your desk. You’re welcome. See you tomorrow.” Click. I tried to maintain a neutral expression. Eileen turned to us.

“Imagine you two being here. How does it compare with the place you lived in in Rome,
Father?
Even the mouldings were made of marble, I heard you tell someone. Well, no mouldings here, marble or otherwise. Not what you’re used to either, eh, Collins? Somebody told me you have two houses. It’s not the home I had hoped for, to say the least. But here I am.”

Eileen walked to the end of the living room and turned: “Come into my room. I have something to show you.” She caught us exchanging glances, and gave a harsh laugh. “Don’t worry. Not
that.
And, it’s not booby-trapped. After all, I wasn’t expecting you.”

She opened the door and preceded us in. She flicked on a low wattage lamp on her bedside table, and sat down on the narrow bed, with its white chenille bedspread. “Have a look around. Is this the room of a self-confident woman, or what? Confident the police would never suspect me. And confident that nobody, but nobody, would ever be joining me in my bedchamber. Guess I should have been the one to make a vow of celibacy, eh Brennan?” He stood in the doorway, unmoving.

On her bedroom wall was a large photo of a weeping woman, the text of Matthew 2:18 printed beside it: Rachel weeping for her children. On the opposite wall was a poster showing a baby’s foot, with an inscription from William Blake: “The angel that presided o’er my birth said: ‘Little creature, formed of joy and mirth, go, love without the help of anything on earth.’”

“So, who figured out the code for Matthew 2:18? I didn’t think it would be that difficult. The letters are useful in another way, too. Both killers got to sign on. I, Brennan. I, Rachel.” She turned and looked at Burke. “I think I got that cross just about where it is on you.” She rose, went towards him, and put her hand on the hem of his T-shirt as if to pull it up, but he grasped her hand and held it still.

For a moment I thought he was going to throw her across the room. Instead he wrapped his arms around the woman and held her close. “Eileen, if your quarrel was with me, why did you take it out on those two women?” He spoke quietly, keeping her in his embrace. “Why didn’t you try to kill me, if you hate me this much?”

Eileen began to tremble, and to weep. No one spoke. If Burke had not been holding her, I suspect she would have collapsed. After two
or three wordless minutes, she began to speak in a broken voice. “I couldn’t kill a priest. You have the power to change bread and wine into the real presence of Christ. And you have been marked by God. How do you think it feels to be betrayed by someone marked by God with His sign? When I heard... when I heard that you weren’t wearing a cross around your neck when that image appeared, it was all I could do to keep from screaming out loud in the courtroom. What had I done? I knew I had done the right thing to eliminate those two people, to protect other children from them. To send them to hell. But was I wrong about you? If you were God’s instrument, chosen to do His work, then who was I to question the decisions you made, even about me? But no.” She wrenched herself away from Burke, sat on the edge of her bed, and fixed him with a look of utmost condemnation. Her voice grew harsh again. “What you did to me could not be called a decision, could it? You didn’t give me a thought. You were so offhand about it, the day you cancelled my life. ‘Eileen? Oh, she’ll be fine.’ Fine? Without parents, without a family, without love? Do I look fine to you,
Father?”

Brennan slid down the doorframe till he was sitting on the floor, elbows on knees, head in hands. “I don’t know what I can possibly say to you, Eileen.”

“But the worst...” she broke in as if he had not spoken “... the worst moment of all was when I heard in court...” She turned her ravaged face to me. “You saw me that night when the jury went out. You thought I was falling apart about
him
going to jail. And in a way, you were right. The reason I lost control that night,” she said, turning to Brennan, “was that I had heard you say in court that you were the father of a child.”

Brennan opened his mouth, but he was either unable or unwilling to speak. I sat in the corner of the room running the numbers through my head. He had entered the seminary in 1962, and his child was born in 1963. Twenty-seven years ago. Surely Eileen could not be... It was 1968 when Burke arrived in Halifax, and later that year he “betrayed” Eileen by introducing a more lovable child to the Kernaghans. Didn’t Eileen say she was eight years old at the time? That would make her thirty; she looked older, but a hard life will do that. Had the orphanage photos been dated, or had she supplied the dates when describing
them? But surely, she could not possibly think —

“You were the father of a child, who was given up for adoption. You said ‘he or she.’ Where was your child put up for adoption?” she challenged Burke. His face gave nothing away.

“You don’t know, is that it?” she persisted. “Is your child here in Nova Scotia, Father Burke?” His face was white and he stared at her, speechless. I felt lost. What was going on? I knew of Sandra’s connections with this province, her summers in Chester, her friendship with the Strattons. Was it possible the child had been placed here?

“Because if it was a baby girl, and she was here, that changes everything, doesn’t it?” Eileen said, nodding in accord with her own internal logic. Her face was streaked with tears, her voice a mere whisper. “I knew I could not bear it. I would not be able to go on, if Natalie, the little girl placed with the Kernaghans, was your daughter.”

Things had taken a turn I had not anticipated, and it was clear from Brennan’s expression that his reaction was the same. Eileen continued: “Because if little Natalie was your child, then... then what you did was perfectly right, and it was not a betrayal of me. You would naturally have to take care of your own child first. What father would not? And if that was the case, then I had been wrong about you all my life. And I had committed two murders in your name when you were blameless.” Tears streamed down her face. “I was ready to take my own life that night.”

Brennan sat, pale and motionless, gazing at Eileen in silence. My mind went back to the night we had come upon her in the youth centre, when she wept so despondently. Of all the ways I might have interpreted the scene, I could not have come up with this.

Eileen dragged the sleeve of her sweater across her eyes, and spoke in a brisk, no-nonsense voice. “I told myself it couldn’t be true. The age was right, but there was no way
his
child would be in such dire straits that she’d wind up at St. Bernadette’s, with or without him on the scene. No doubt she, or he, would have been a beautiful, bright, talented little child. Not St. Bernadette’s material. So I was determined to put the idea out of my head. Natalie Kernaghan has done very well for herself, by the way. She has her medical degree, is married and expecting her first child.” Eileen
made a point of looking around at her sordid surroundings, the frat boys hooting and stomping above our heads.

“Meanwhile I have to fear for my life, with all these drunken louts in the building. One night I woke up and found two of them in my kitchen, looking through the cupboards. I had to get a deadbolt after that. At my own expense.”

A thought occurred to me then. “Did you break in to the arch-diocesan office?”

“I didn’t break in! But I did spend part of New Year’s Day there.”

“Reading files.”

“Reading
his
file, and scattering others to cover my tracks. Not because I expected to find anything useful for my plan. I already had everything I needed. It sounds so stupid now, but I wanted to see if he had written any letters, or if there was anything about his time here before.” If there was any reference to her, is what she meant. “I knew where the secretary kept her keys and I copied one. I got in but somebody came so I had to run.”

“Why did you remove Father O’Flaherty’s file?”

“I didn’t even see Mike’s file. I don’t think it was there.”

He had removed it himself, I realized. He didn’t want anyone reading about the exorcism or his exile afterwards. I wondered when he had spirited it away.

Brennan looked at me, and Eileen caught the glance. Her head swivelled from one of us to the other. “You’re my lawyer!” It was nearly a scream. “He’s my priest, my confessor! This conversation is secret. You can’t use it!”

“It doesn’t work that way, Eileen. You know what has to happen.” I got up. “I’m going to the phone. Stay where you are and don’t make things any worse.” Brennan leaned forward, tense, ready to subdue her. But she didn’t move. I dialed the number of duty counsel for Legal Aid. “You’re going to have a lawyer and the police are going to be here. Talk to the lawyer, not the cops.” She did not even glance at me as I spoke.

V

After the arrest, Brennan and I drove away.

“Where to?” I asked him.

“I’m too wound up to go home. Drive to the park.”

We sat in the car, in the lot between Point Pleasant Park and the container terminal. We watched a heavy surf crash in from the ocean against the breakwater. Lights winked at us across the dark water. Uncharacteristically, Brennan talked at length about his reaction to Eileen’s revelations, how his careless introduction of Natalie, almost offhand and quickly forgotten by him, was so unforgivable, in Eileen’s eyes and now in his. I tried to offer comfort by reminding him that the decision was made by the Kernaghans, not by him, and that he could not be held responsible for the way Eileen lashed out at two young women twenty-two years later. But he wasn’t listening. I knew it was a rare occasion when he gave voice to his innermost thoughts, and we would be back to the old self-contained Brennan before long. If it could do him some good, I would let him talk.

Eventually, he wound down and was quiet for a few minutes. All we heard was the sound of the breakers. Then he tried to laugh. “What wouldn’t I give to see the face on Marguerite Dunne when she hears this.”

“No reason you shouldn’t see her. I had not considered anything beyond this moment, to tell you the truth. Isn’t it better if Marguerite hears from us, rather than from the police or the news media, that the assistant director of St. Bernadette’s Youth Centre is a double murderer?”

The choir school was in darkness when we went in. We found Marguerite’s number and Brennan dialed. “Marguerite. Brennan Burke here. No, I’m not stocious drunk. And if I were, what makes you think it would be you I’d be calling? Yes, I do know it’s after midnight.” He looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Yes, my mother did bring me up right. Well, I’ve been accused of worse, as you know. Marguerite, shut the fuck up. This is urgent. Meet me at the centre. You won’t want this to wait till morning.” Click.

Brennan went into the hall when Marguerite arrived, combed, coifed and dressed for the day. Was that a flicker of fear in her eyes?
If so, it was quickly masked. She stopped and stared.

“Brennan. You have blood on your hands.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Whose is it?”

Then he remembered and touched his head. The cut at his hair line was bleeding again. “It’s just my own.”

“Ah.”

“I’ll go clean up.”

Burke disappeared into the nearest washroom and I heard water splashing. It was only then that I realized I was in the shadows, and that Marguerite thought she and Brennan were alone. “Sister,” I said, stepping into the lighted hallway.

If she was startled, she didn’t show it. “Are you catering this event, whatever it is?”

“I guess that will depend on how your appetite is later on.”

“I see.”

Brennan returned unbloodied and motioned with his head towards Marguerite’s office. We followed her in and sat. She looked from one to the other of us from behind her desk.

“Well?”

Brennan leaned towards her. “The
IBR
carved into the victims’ bodies. It stands for One, Two, Eighteen. Matthew.”

She thought for a few moments, then: “Rachel, weeping for her children. Of course. Of course.” She closed her eyes and seemed to be going over all the evidence she could recall. “It was a woman then.” But she did not, or could not, make the connection between the killer and her own devoted deputy. “Weeping for her children, and striking out at you. A casualty of your Black Irish charms, I suppose, Brennan, coming back to haunt you?”

“A casualty of my black-hearted thoughtlessness. And it’s very close to home. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have called you here.” Marguerite was very still. Her eyes locked on to Brennan’s face. He finally said: “Eileen.”