The Parting Glass (53 page)

“I thought you were going to tell us the ending.”

“Well, very nearly. Just be patient. You’ll see what I mean.”

Megan closed her eyes and thought of Niccolo, waiting for her in Cleveland. “I’ll hold you to that.”

1925

Castlebar, County Mayo

My dearest Patrick,

How dear is family and how lightly we dismiss it when we are young. I have many friends and neighbors, but in my final hours, it will be you I see, standing at my bedside as I stood by yours so many hours when you were a young lad suffering from one illness or another.

Your care fell to me because our mother had the work of four women before her each day and she could not falter. Still, I don’t regret the many hours I spent caring for you, Patrick. In later years I had no sons or daughters of my own, but I had memories of sharing your childhood. If this is the last letter that I ever write you, please know that your love, and the love of our sisters, has made me the woman I am. I am happy to be that woman, and I will die thinking of all of you.

Your loving sister,

Maura McSweeney

chapter 34

L
iam found no joy in waking early. Dawn held no romance. As a child, it had been his chore to milk the family cow, and if he lay abed longer than his mother deemed necessary, he suffered a beating for it. His days with the Christian Brothers had started before sunrise, too. Gathering eggs from chickens well about their business, Mass before a porridge breakfast so meager that boys routinely fainted from hunger before and after. He found no joy in brightening skies or the songs of birds. Today, however, he greeted both with some enthusiasm. He had hidden himself for three days, and this was his first foray outside.

After Clare McNulty’s death, Liam had vanished into the bowels of Cleveland, but he had learned from the newspaper that in the hours after the fatal shot, Cassidy had skipped town. Liam was certain that Cassidy would never willingly show his weasel face in the city again and equally certain that Chicago’s wheels of justice would not turn energetically enough to spit him back in this direction. Cassidy was gone for good.

McNulty was not. His one opportunity to garner favor with the North Side gang had died in a tunnel. Perhaps he mourned his daughter for more than this, but Liam was in no position to find out. His job had been to guard Clare, then disappear when Cassidy arrived on the scene. Instead, he had spirited her from the house to marry another man. If McNulty knew the truth—and surely he had guessed some of it—McNulty would never forgive him. It was past time for Liam to take his family and leave Cleveland.

Except for one detail.

As the sky lightened gradually, that detail lay nearly within his reach. He lay on his belly in Whiskey Island scrub, remembering the night of the raid and the path of the Canadian captain through these woods. His memories had been forged in darkness, but even in the chaos, he had tried to notice landmarks. He thought he was close to the place where the captain had stooped, nearly disappearing from Liam’s view for the moments it had taken him to accomplish some task. Liam had a fair idea what the man had done. Now he had only to find the spot and undo it.

He had been listening intently for long minutes, but the only sounds he had heard were those of a lone tug out on the river, the squirm and rustle of birds and small animals, the shrill whistle of a train. He crept forward now, another ten yards, waited, then resumed his journey.

At last he came to the spot where he planned to begin his search. This was as close as his memory could peg it. He rose to a squat and began to filter leaves and soil through his fingers. He searched for holes in the soil, for rocks he could dislodge, for crevices in stumps or dead branches. He inched along, taking time every minute or two to listen intently for intruders.

Ten minutes passed, then ten more. Frustration gnawed at him, although he’d expected this. He knew his search might be futile. Others could have been here before him. Surely even in captivity the captain had been able to communicate with someone. McNulty himself had probably searched these woods with Jerry. Worst of all, perhaps Liam had been wrong from the beginning and misinterpreted what he had seen that night.

He inched to the right and continued to dig and sift. A half hour passed as he made a circle, then another hour as the circle widened. Now he doubted he was in the right area. He thought he had been the only witness to the captain’s flight, but the storm and darkness might well have played havoc with his sense of direction.

The sun was about to break over the horizon. He knew he had to leave. He was on foot these days, his beloved Model T abandoned on a side street, in case someone was looking for it—and him. He could continue tomorrow, but that meant another day in Cleveland. Brenna and Irene were still hidden with her former employers, but the longer they stayed there, the more likely McNulty would be to discover them. And McNulty would use Liam’s family to get back at him. That was one thing Liam knew for certain.

He scooted right and decided to search one additional area. He lifted a rock and found nothing, drove his fingers between the wide roots of a tree and found nothing. Just as he was about to give up for the morning, he noticed a rotten limb lying to one side of him. It had been there for years, he thought, the family home of carpenter ants and beetles who had set about its destruction with single-minded purpose. They had yet to accomplish their goal, but the limb disintegrated beneath his fingers as he lifted it. He knew as he did that he had not been the first to do so. Sawdust and bark lay in untidy piles underneath it, as if the limb had been recently disturbed.

At first nothing caught his eye; then he saw an indentation in the ground. Not deep, and nearly hidden by more of the decomposing bark. He swept the bark away with his foot to find the prize he had sought.

The wad of bills astounded him. He had expected fewer, had been sure that McNulty had paid the rumrunners most of their money up front. Now he understood why his former boss was so determined to locate what the captain had reaped at the end of the transaction. Surely there was enough money here to pay back much of what McNulty had borrowed. With what he could sell quickly and with whatever clout he could still muster, McNulty would be saved. But not now. Not when the money was in Liam’s hands and not his.

That thought gave Liam great pleasure.

As he pocketed the money, he looked around once more. The birds were louder now, and the trumpeting of frogs had ended. The day was beginning in earnest, and soon he would be clearly visible. Crouching, he found his way deeper into the forest, along the path he had plotted earlier for his escape.

When he was able to straighten, he found he was no longer alone. Under the sheltering branches of a tree, Glen Donaghue was watching him.

“When I was a boy,” Glen said, “there were stories of bodies buried here. The famine Irish were too poor for funerals and consecrated ground, so when our own died, we buried them ourselves. Then, if a priest was generous enough of soul, he might take a walk along the right path to say a few prayers and sprinkle the grave with holy water.”

Liam thought of Clare, who had died not far away and would be buried in the McNulty family plot tomorrow. “It’s a haunted place,” he agreed.

“In many, many ways.” Glen pushed away from the tree trunk. There were new lines in his boyish face, battle-scars. There was no light in his eyes. “So why would a superstitious Irishman like yourself choose the hour just before dawn to stroll here? Spirits and fairies are still about. In the dark hours the
pooka
might well come crashing through these woods looking for people of evil intent.”

“Should
I
be afraid?”

“You have blots on your record, Liam. You were on McNulty’s payroll.”

“They say the devil will have his own.”

“Yet you went against him to protect Clare.”

Liam waited. He was certain Glen knew why he had come here and what he had found. He felt like a mouse under the shrewd gaze of a farmer’s wife. He was armed, but he would never use a weapon against this man. Glen didn’t know that, of course, but that only made the situation more dangerous.

“You’ve been following me,” Liam said at last.

“Not easily, I’ll say that much for you.”

“What do you want from me?”

“To see what’s in your pocket.”

“And what has that to do with you?”

“Show me, and we’ll see.”

So far Glen had not brandished a gun. But what did that matter? Liam wasn’t going to fight him, and he wasn’t going to tell him why. He was at an impasse. He thought of Brenna and Irene. He hoped that once the money was in Glen’s possession, he would let Liam go without arresting him. Glen was an honorable man, but perhaps he could be persuaded that Liam had done nothing more than search for and find the money.

“Take it,” Liam said, holding his arms out from his sides. “I have a gun. I don’t plan to use it on you.”

“Why not?” Glen stepped forward and reached inside the pocket of Liam’s jacket.

“Because I have no quarrel with
you.
”

Glen pulled out the wad of bills. His weight was on the balls of his feet, his body tense. Clearly he was ready for anything Liam might try. When Liam simply stood there, Glen stepped back. He held the bills where he could see both them and Liam. He whistled softly.

“More than I’ve seen at one time.” Liam smiled. “Of course I only stumbled on it when I was taking my morning constitutional.”

“That so?”

“I’ve no idea how it got here.”

“That would be a story for the police to sort out.”

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. I was hoping that for the sake of friendship you might just say you found it yourself when you turn it into the authorities.”

“Friendship?”

“My friendship with Clare. Yours with Clare. She was a good woman. I’m sorry….” Liam shook his head.

“And you think because you tried to help her at the end, I should let you go?”

Liam wasn’t certain where this conversation was heading. Glen’s voice betrayed nothing. He might well be planning to kill Liam for revenge against everyone ever connected to McNulty or Cassidy. Or he might be planning to become a local hero, the man who turned in the money that sank McNulty’s bootlegging empire once and for all.

“I don’t think anything,” Liam said at last. “The only thing in life I’ve ever counted on is surprise.”

“Why did you work for him?”

“In my wife’s words, it takes a dirty hand to make a clean hearth. I have a family to support.”

Glen held up the wad of bills. “This would have more than done it, huh? Sink it all into the stock market, and you might become a millionaire?”

“No, I had other uses for it, as well.”

“I’ve done a bit of research. Your immigration records show that your full name is William Francis Tierney, come here by way of Canada. Oddly enough, a man your age and description with the name of Liam Patrick Tierney is wanted by the authorities in Ireland. He shot a man just a month before you showed up here.”

“Is that so? And how many other Irishmen came to this country at the same time I did?”

Glen ignored that. “He was an IRA man. The IRA wouldn’t be that other
use
you have for this money, would it?”

“As I told you, I stumbled on the money by accident. I’ve had little time to consider exactly how best to use it.”

Glen rippled the bills with his thumb. “And would one of those ways have been McNulty himself?”

“McNulty? I’ve no loyalty or affection for the man. He forced his only daughter to flee. He was going to give her to a man who is everything he should have shielded her from. He’s a thief and a liar, and if he ever got a penny of this, it would have been off my cold, dead body.” Liam was surprised at the ferocity in his own voice. With an effort, he softened his tone. “I would rather the police have the money, since it’s come to that.”

“If the police or the Treasury Department takes it, what do you suppose that will do for McNulty’s case?”

Liam didn’t understand. “His case?”

“With the men in Chicago who loaned him the money in the first place?”

Liam wasn’t surprised Glen knew about that. At this point he imagined there was little loyalty left in McNulty’s organization. Surely people were talking to the authorities in exchange for their own freedom. “I don’t know what it would do for McNulty. What do
you
think?”

“I think if those Chicago boys knew that the money truly did disappear that night, the way McNulty said, and that the police had it now, they’d be less inclined to blow McNulty away. They’d take whatever he could scrape together as payment. They might kill him as a warning to others, but then again, they might not. It’s a gamble.”

Liam understood. “But if they believe McNulty might still have the money, or that he didn’t do enough to find it, then they’ll kill him for sure?”

“Incompetence is one thing. Fate can intervene in even the best-laid plans, and they’re smart enough to know it. But disloyalty or treating the North Siders like fools is another.”

Liam wasn’t certain where Glen was heading with this. He waited to see.

Glen continued. “Do you know that I turned in my badge the day I was to marry Clare? They let me keep my gun, although they shouldn’t have, but they knew we were in danger. I was to return the gun later.”

“Do you think I care if you’re armed? Unless you’re planning to point the gun at me.”

“I was surprised that your last name is Tierney. There are Tierneys in my family. Did you know that?”

“How would I?”

“All dead. And even I don’t carry the family name. Tell me, because I can’t remember from your records. You have a son?”

“A daughter.”

Glen nodded. “Yes, that’s right. No one to carry on your family name, either.”

“I hope to remedy that someday. Of course, if you turn me in and somehow the authorities confuse me with this other man from Ireland and send me back, I’ll be hanging from a rope in Dublin.”