Worlds Between

by Nordgren, Carl;

  The man at the bridge started walking towards Maureen. In a few more steps he’d be close enough and that would put two of them in her practiced range; there was still no evidence the fisherman was armed.

  “Time for you to shut up, and let’s talk about what happens next.”

  “Oh I know what happens next, so answer this for me before you send me on my way. How many true Irish did a Black n’ Tan have to kill to be a hero?”

  He quickened his step a bit, watching her carefully, waiting for her move; she wanted him to come closer and as long as his gun was at his side she let him.

  “For you see, after they beat him to the ground they made him get to his knees.” Maureen got down on her knees, her hands still behind her, waiting for the man coming her way to take two more steps, her finger already on the trigger of her pistol; she was most accurate from a practiced kneeling position and she could assume it quickly.

  The man before her stopped as she knelt and the man with the Sten came to the ready position and stepped behind her again, and Maureen knew he’d see her pistol so she had to act; she shifted her weight and just before she pulled the pistol from behind her back he did see it.

  “She’s got a gun!”

  The man standing before Maureen raised his pistol when he saw her weight shift and the look in Maureen’s face change, and aimed and fired twice before Maureen could get a shot off. The first bullet hit her in the chest and ripped through a lung, and the second tore a hole in her stomach. She dropped her gun as she fell back on the road.

  The men approached her cautiously, guns ready. The man with the Sten picked up her pistol. Her eyes were open, and she was breathing, and she raised her head.

  She was covered in blood and it ran from her mouth as she coughed up her words.

  “I kill…who killed Dono…in Banbrid…”

  She coughed and the blood was foamy, and she lay her head down on a pillow of thick black curls and her blue eyes went gray when she took her last breath.

  This Man and Mathew Loon and all the spirits who gathered at this sacred place, where the funeral pyres burned, where Mathew Loon sacrificed himself to save the River, they changed their song. They still called to the spirits of this sacred place, and they called to a new spirit, that was also an old spirit.

  They hadn’t been able to raise the doctor over the helicopter’s radio during the ride to Grassy Narrows, and the Hudson Bay Post was closed with the agent away for two days, so that radio would not be available to them to try again until four full days after the accident.

  Joe Loon was lying on a pallet of blankets and furs as Naomi examined his injured legs again and softly rubbed an ointment on the injuries. The ankle was swollen and discolored, protected and held stable with a forest splint. The knee had been puffed up to nearly twice its normal size, but a lot of the swelling had subsided.

  Naomi’s touch was very gentle.

  “I cannot walk until they heal.”

  “When the Hudson Bay Post opens again Simon will radio for the doctor.”

  Her touch was soothing.

  “It is clear my ankle is broken. I do not know what is wrong with my knee.”

  Naomi stopped to pull the blanket back up over her husband, pressing her body close to his as she did.

  “I am just glad my husband has returned to me.”

  “I am glad to be lying next to my wife in this world.”

  Naomi laid her head on his chest and began to rub his stomach.

  “A good wife knows what will make her husband’s pain go away.”

  Naomi reached down under the blanket and rubbed her husband softly.

  “You have always been a good wife.”

  The men decided to leave a false crime scene. The fisherman used Maureen’s pistol to shoot her rental car, three times. Then he slipped the pistol under the front seat of the car.

  “That’ll keep ‘em guessing.”

  They hid the rental car behind some thick bushes growing by the side of the River.

  They wrapped Maureen in a tarp and loaded her in the trunk of the tail car, and they hid her body where no one would ever find it.

  Chapter 9

  Between Worlds

  The first phone call Brian made upon learning from his mother-in-law that Maureen was missing was to their attorney, alerting him. The second was a radio call to the Hudson Bay Post setting in motion the conversation he wanted to have with Albert about Mary joining him on this trip, to take care of Grace; he wanted his daughter with him, or close by with his family, while he searched for his wife; since his family were strangers to his daughter he hoped Mary could join them again.

  Albert wondered if Big Brian shouldn’t just go alone, suggesting they would take care of Grace at Grassy Narrows.

  “I thought of that, an’ thanks for offerin’. An’ if she found out you made the offer she might be preferin’ to stay there with her brothers an’ sisters, sure. But Albert, I’m thinkin’ of myself here, an’ I’ll feel better knowin’ she’s close by. Over.”

  “We will get Mary ready to travel with you. Over.”

  “Thanks Albert. Thanks for everything. Over.”

  “My brother. Joe Loon wants you to know he will be calling on all the spirits of this world and the next world and the world of Jesus the Christ to guide your journey to a happy ending. Over and out.”

  “Over and out.”

  Thirty hours after the phone call from Maureen’s mother Brian exited the plane in Dublin, carrying his daughter in his arms, followed by Mary, expecting to find his cousin Eamon and his daughter Katie waiting for him, pleased his son Tommy was there as well. Katie was in her early twenties, Tommy his mid-twenties; as a fully ordained priest, the vestigial tab to his priest’s collar was showing. Brian gave Grace a hug before he put her down and gestured to Katie. “There’s your sister Katie. We’ve told you stories of Katie.” Grace O’Malley reached back to take Mary’s hand and led her to meet her sister.

  Brian saw the immediate comfort between the Ojibway woman, the Irish woman, and his daughter, and wished Maureen was there to see it. When he joined Tommy standing with Eamon he noticed his son had a small travel bag with him.

  “Any news while I was travelin’?”

  “Sorry Coz, still nothin’ but confusion about it. No one seems to know anythin’ other than she’s still missin’.”

  “Thanks for takin’ Gracie. You’ll find Mary takes good care … Can I ask about Patrick?”

  “Patrick wouldn’t come.”

  “I understand… But he sent no word?”

  “I’d be lyin’ to you if I said so, sorry.”

  “Give him my regards.”

  Tommy raised his travel bag a bit. “I’m coming along with you. If you want some company and perhaps some help.”

  “I’m in need of your comfort an’ of all the help I can get. Comin’ over I was thinkin’ I would need Maureen to help me find her… I can’t believe she’s missin’… Nothin’ about her…”

  Eamon and Katie followed by Grace O’Malley and Mary left for Cong. It would have been more convenient to have flown into the Shannon airport for his Cong relatives, but Brian wanted to retrace Maureen’s steps as closely as he could; Maureen would have suggested that. So Tommy and Brian checked with each car hire service and found Maureen Burke had rented a white Ford Prefect; they noted the license plate, then hired their own car. They left Dublin on the road to Dundalk on their way to Derry.

  They assumed Maureen would drive the most direct route; they plotted it and followed it, as she had. They would keep their eyes out from the start for anything that might be a sign that she was there.

  With their attention directed, they spoke infrequently, and when they did it came in short bursts.

  They were approaching the spot where Maureen was killed; Tommy was getting his first look at the bridge and the River when he said, “Whenever you say Kevin Coogan’s name, you say it like you think he’s done something wrong here. That this is his fault
.”

  “I’ve never been sure what to think of that fella’, but at this point, yeah, I do think he’s involved in whatever’s happenin’ here.”

  “Then why would he call on her mum to check in on Maureen?”

  “To make it look like he didn’t have anythin’ to do with it? That’s what Maureen would say.”

  They drove much of the way in silence until Brian asked, “How is Patrick?”

  “The same.”

  “Meanin’?”

  “His spells are neither better nor worse. Sometimes he says he’s dizzy. Sometimes he says he’s faint. He says it’s the electricity of his brain shorts out for a few seconds and he never knows quite how his body will react, that’s his current best explanation. Two or three spells a week is what he tells me, and Katie says more often it’s four or five.”

  “An’ he still curses me.”

  “The way he puts it, I’m sorry, he says you wear violence as your mantle. Often he says it’s your natural wake. But honestly he’s told us not to mention you, because he doesn’t want to think about you at all.”

  For a few moments Brian found his sadness for Patrick distracted from his worry about his wife and for those few moments he felt his body relax.

  When they arrived at the O’Toole cottage, Maureen’s mother had very little to tell them. It was two days the law considered her missing, but five days since she’d last seen her daughter. When Maureen left on a Tuesday morning to meet with Kevin she planned on returning that evening; on Thursday Kevin stopped by, alone, at Maureen’s request he said, to check on her and to let her know Maureen would be gone a couple more days. When Kevin arrived two days later, he was expecting she’d be there or had been there on her way back to Kenora, and was concerned when he learned her mother hadn’t seen her. Kevin considered her missing for two days at that point. Then Kevin stopped again the next morning to check for new developments but had none of his own to report. That was the last time she saw him.

  “Have you any way of contactin’ Kevin?”

  “I know he lives in Dublin. I don’t have his address; I guess he must have telephone but I don’t know his exchange or his number. He owns a music shop, but I’m afraid I don’t even know the name of it.”

  “What is it about Kevin that he seems to be… I don’t know, sort of mysteriously orbitin’ round your daughter?”

  “He had a close friendship with Maureen’s da. An’ after Donovan died, it was easy for Maureen to let Kevin take on as some sort of a guide.”

  “He was your husband’s good friend, but you can’t get in touch with him? If there’s anythin’ I should know about him that would help me find her—”

  Tommy interrupted. “Or find him.”

  “You’ve got to tell me right now.”

  “Maureen told me about your jealously of the man.”

  “He makes me suspicious, not jealous.”

  “Just know you’re the only man my daughter has ever loved.”

  “An’ I thank you for that, yeah, that is the blessin’ of my life, an’ so I need to ask you again, if there’s anythin’ you haven’t told me, that might help me know where to look, or what I am lookin’ for, you’ve got to tell me now.”

  “You don’t have to ask me again. I’ve not slept since Kevin’s visit put me in a state, an’ I’ve been thinkin’ through all I know or might know or should know for some idea of what’s happened. What I have for you I’ve given; I’m afraid that’s it.”

  The next morning Brian and Tommy called on the local Royal Ulster Constabulary office. The RUC had just discovered her hired car, abandoned near a bridge to the south and east, her night bag on the back seat, and a pistol under the front seat, but no sign of her. Brian was asked about the pistol.

  “It sounds like one of hers. Back home she has a couple of pistols but her .38 is her favorite. She enjoys takin’ guests back to the dump, behind our fishin’ camp, for target practice. Cans an’ bottles. She’s got an expert skill at it, at target shootin’.”

  And when asked he replied, “No, I haven’t known her to travel with it.”

  “It’s interesting to note that it appears to have been fired recently. And four times.”

  “She fired her pistol?”

  “We don’t know if she fired it or not. When it was found it had just one bullet in the cylinder and it had been fired in the past few days.”

  Tommy saw a look on his father’s face he’d never seen before. He looked frightened.

  The look was soon masked.

  They got directions to where the car was found and Tommy and Brian drove there. They spent the next two days searching the villages up and down the road and up and down the River, but no one had seen her or heard anything.

  Brian and Tommy were sitting in a pub eating cold cuts and cheese at the end of another long day of searching for clues. Brian took a deep drink of the local stout and placed his glass down, slowly, speaking slowly, as he began to accept the thought he’d been fighting.

  “She’s been missin’ for a week, yeah.”

  “My count is six days.”

  “Her pistol was shot, four times… She must be...”

  He was quiet, he took another drink, Tommy waited, and he then asked, “She must be?”

  Brian didn’t want to say it. He stared at his glass.

  “Isn’t it the only conclusion that makes any sense of this? She wouldn’t leave us by choice. I know her love for me was real but if I’m wrong it’s clear she worships an’ adores her Gracie an’ would never abandon her willfully. So someone has done somethin’ to her, someone stopped her, there at the bridge, where they found her car, as she was headin’ to Derry, somehow, for some reason, someone stopped her right there, an’ I am beginnin’ to think that in the struggle they…”

  Brian was quiet. Tommy waited. He was studying his father’s face when he saw it change; sadness invaded every feature and Tommy had to look away. They were silent and still. Finally Brian stood and said, “All I’ve got is feckin’ Kevin Coogan. An’ if it’s not him, he knows who.”

  As they traveled, Brian worked the RUC’s chain of command for support for his search. It was on his seventh day in Ireland, when they doubled back to Derry, with Brian growing more and more despondent, that an officer shared important information and the theory the RUC had been considering from the beginning. They had been keeping it from the public, but now they were interested in how Brian would react.

  “It’s IRA.”

  Tommy watched for Brian’s reaction; he didn’t appear surprised.

  “What does that mean, it’s IRA?”

  “You know how turf cutters battle over boundary rights at the edges of their peat fields. There’s been a turf war going on between various IRA factions for years, yeah, only now it’s getting worse. We heard of skirmishes between them on that very day. We believe she got herself caught in the middle of a turf war.”

  Brian was silent, so Tommy asked, “What evidence do you have supporting this theory?”

  “There were bullet holes in her car. Three of them.”

  Brian exploded. “Bullet holes! Why the feck wasn’t I told about bullet holes in my wife’s car!”

  Two officers came from another room and stood at the doorway in case they were needed.

  “First, sir, you’ll control that temper. And you’ll understand that we are very careful when and how we share the details of an ongoing investigation.”

  “Where were they?”

  The officer slid a photo of the car from a file and handed it to Brian.

  “One in the driver’s side window, one in the driver’s door, and the front left tire was shot out.”

  Brian was stunned quiet and his son spoke for him.

  “Did you find any blood in the car?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t find any, or you won’t tell us?”

  “We didn’t find any.”

  Brian found his voice.

  “An’ how was she involved
?”

  “We’re not saying she was involved. It might be she was simply driving by at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Brian shook his head. “No, no, she’s always a right place right time sort of a lady.” Then he blurted it out. “You think my wife’s IRA.”

  “Right now we’re treating this as an IRA affair, and we suspect she was a casualty.”

  Though Brian had wondered, he was struck dumb when he heard the officer officially refer to his wife as a casualty. Once again his son spoke for him.

  “A casualty? You need a body for a casualty.”

  “Not always. Missing and presumed dead, that’s a casualty.”

  Brian turned away to try to control himself so Tommy couldn’t see his face turning red, early evidence of the Red Bull Demon returning. If he had, he might not have asked his next question.

  “Is Kevin Coogan IRA?”

  “I heard you were asking after Kevin Coogan. How do you know him?”

  Brian’s back was still turned but his answer was hot. “He’s a friend of my wife’s family.”

  “Yes, we have evidence linking Coogan to a number of known IRA operations.”

  When Brian turned back to ask his next question, Tommy saw Red Bull Demon’s anger.

  He wasn’t roaring, but he was fuming.

  “Any of your evidence point to where the feck he is?”

  The police officer didn’t respond well to Brian’s heat. “One more time, sir, you must calm down. An officer of the Crown won’t be spoken to in that tone. We’re conducting our investigation, and any further information we have pertinent to the investigation is not information we’re sharing with the public at this point.”