“Chick, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Just a feeling I got. Didn’t want to get you all jumpy. I’m not even sure I’m right, but I think I’ve seen the same car drive by the house off and on for the past few days, usually about two in the morning. A green Camry. The guy drives slow, stares at the houses, then speeds up at the end of the block and drives away. I mean, maybe the guy’s got a girlfriend in the neighborhood, but I don’t like it. It smells. I ran the plate and the Camry came up stolen. I phoned it into CPD a few days ago, but earlier this morning I seen the car again. This time with a different plate. Same deal. Slows down, speeds up, drives away. I think if he comes by tonight, me and him are going to have a little conversation.”
“Is there only one person?”
“The lighting ain’t great, but I think it’s only one guy. White dude, baseball cap, needs a shave.”
“You haven’t talked to Catherine about this, have you?”
“No way. You know, she brings me coffee and pastries. You got a real special lady there.”
“I’m aware. This all makes me very uneasy, Chick. I’m going to get this damn trust account set up, finish my business and come home.”
“Don’t worry, boss. I’ll take care of everything till you get here.”
NINETEEN
EAMON’S WAKE WAS A quiet and somber affair. No matter what they say about Irish wakes, this one was chilling and foreboding. Everyone was still in shock, and if you spoke at all, you spoke in a whisper. Most people sat in quiet meditation. Deirdre and Janie had assembled groupings of pictures of Eamon’s life and they displayed them on poster boards.
Looking at the pictures was a nostalgic roller coaster for me. Happy times, sad times, frightened times. There were photographs of the Taggart brothers, photographs of my father as a young man, and even a photo of my mother and father as a young couple, one I had never seen before. My father had a full head of black hair and was shown wearing a white shirt, open at the neck, sleeves rolled up to his biceps. My mother was a diminutive, curly haired girl and shown in a knee-length cotton skirt. She was biting her bottom lip in a distinctly flirtatious pose. I don’t ever remember her smiling like that. In my memories, she is frequently sullen and depressed, especially so in the months before she died. The more time I spend in Northern Ireland, the more I understand the reasons for her depression.
I came across a photo of Eamon and Annie, taken on Fergus’s front porch after a Sunday dinner. I remembered that night. Uncle Eamon was out on the porch smoking a cigarette and he had pulled me aside.
“Deirdre tells me that this is the third time Annie’s been back to the house for a Sunday dinner,” Eamon said. “That’s a new record for you, isn’t it?”
I smiled. “I know. She’s different from the others.”
“Well, go fetch her, Liam, I want to give her the Taggart once-over.”
“Uncle Eamon.”
“Go.”
“Please don’t mess this up now, Uncle Eamon. I like her.” He laughed and I went inside to bring her out to the porch.
“My uncle Eamon wants to talk to you,” I said to her. “Don’t believe a word he says.”
She gave me the eye. “So I’m finally going to get the truth?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He’s a rascal. A solid troublemaker. And he’s bound to give you the third degree. Remember you have a right to have an attorney present during all questioning.”
She laughed and said, “I can handle myself. No worries.”
We walked out onto the porch and I quickly said, “I’m warning you now, Uncle Eamon.”
He waved me off and talked directly to Annie. “You know, it’s not like Liam to invite a girl back here. He’s taking a big chance exposing a young lassie to this grizzly lot more than once.”
I protested, “Uncle Eamon, come on.”
But Annie gave me a look. “I can handle it.”
“Did you come here of your own accord, or did Liam have to pay you?”
She nodded. “He gave me twenty pounds.”
“Figures. No way a pretty girl like you would willingly associate with the likes of me nephew.”
“I really came for the food,” she said.
Eamon smiled. She was holding her own. “Are you Catholic or Protestant?” he put to her. Oh Christ, I thought. Pleasantries over.
“I’m a Jew,” she said.
He pondered that response and took a drag on his cigarette. “Well, are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?” I laughed hard at the question, but I wasn’t sure he meant it as a joke. That’s how people thought in those days.
Annie squinted her eyes and wrinkled her nose, a delightfully cute mannerism of hers. “What does that mean? I’m just a Jew.”
Eamon shook his head. “No, you gotta be one or the other if you live in the North.”
“Nope. Not Catholic. Not Protestant. Just a Jew. We’ve been here in Northern Ireland for a hundred and fifty years.”
Eamon smiled. “Then you must have been hiding all those years.”
Annie put her hands on her hips in a decidedly pugnacious manner. “Oh, it’s to be like that, is it? I’ll have you know that it was a substantial Jewish immigration that organized and promoted your Irish linen industry in the 1860s. A Jew, Sir Otto Jaffe, was twice the Lord Mayor of Belfast. I attend services at the Belfast Hebrew Congregation where Isaac Herzog served as rabbi and he later became the chief rabbi of Israel. His son, Chaim Herzog, born right here in Belfast, was elected president of Israel in 1983.”
Eamon turned his head in my direction and gave me a wink. “There’s not much left to the linen industry, you know. Can’t be too many Jews working there.”
“I know,” she said. “Our community is shrinking. It’s just a few hundred now. In fact, there are only eighty members left in our synagogue. A small community. But as Shakespeare wrote, ‘Though she be but little, she is fierce.’”
That drew a laugh from Eamon. “What does your father do?” he asked her.
“He works for Social Security. At the Carvaghy Road clinic. And he volunteers for troubled teens.”
“And you, pretty young colleen, what do you do?”
“Uncle Eamon,” I interrupted, “give her a break. This isn’t a job interview.”
“Maybe ’tis, maybe ’tisn’t,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye.
“I’m a teacher in the primary school,” she said. “On Roseleigh Street.”
My uncle nodded. “Would that be Holy Family?”
Annie smiled and shook her head. “No, I teach at Mary Conover. It’s a public school with a multiethnic enrollment.”
“In Northern Ireland? And they get along?”
Annie chuckled. “They’re little children. They don’t know any better. It will take them a few years before they develop and refine their skills of bigotry and distrust.”
My uncle was taken aback and sat up straight with a startled look on his face. Then he broke into a spirited laugh from deep in his belly. He pointed his finger directly at Annie and said, “You picked a good one here, Liam. I like her wit. She’s a feisty one. Spit and vinegar. She may be a Jew, but to my way of thinking, she’s a solid Catholic Jew, from the right side of Divis Street.”
I worried how Annie would take that, but she smiled, shook his hand and said, “Then I will accept that designation in the spirit in which it is given.” And from then on she was Eamon’s Catholic Jew.
While I lingered in that memory, Deirdre walked up behind me and pointed at the picture. “He always thought you and Annie were a good pair, that you’d tie the knot.”
“So did I, until the end of summer.”
“I remember,” she said. “All too well.”
I shook my head. “No regrets, Aunt Deirdre. It’s all ancient history. It doesn’t even seem like the same lifetime. All behind me. When I left here I was an emotional wreck. Annie and I were bound together so tightly it was inconceivable that anything would ever separate
us. I had no future plans that didn’t include her. When she suddenly broke it off, I returned to Chicago in a state of shock. It took a long time to work through all those feelings of anger and resentment, but I did. I vowed never to let myself be that vulnerable again.”
Deirdre smiled. “You have a wife and a baby.”
“That’s true because the heart is a tough little muscle. Just when you think it’s down for the count, and the referee is standing over you going ‘six, seven, eight,’ it bounces back up for another round. It took a while, but two years ago I reconnected with Catherine, a girl I idolized in high school but never had the courage to date, and now I’m as happy as can be. All my successes, my present circumstances, my emotional well-being, it’s all because of Catherine. But since I’ve returned to Antrim, I find myself running into all these old memories and it’s uncomfortable. I need to go home.”
“So that’s why you were hollering in your sleep last night? You yelled out Fergus’s name.”
I nodded. “I had a bad dream. Uncle Fergus was sitting in his chair just as real as could be. He asked me if I was mad at him for bringing me back to Antrim. I scolded him for putting me in this situation and I asked for his help. He told me that wasn’t his role and he was out and about on his heavenly pursuits. And I accused him of consorting with a heavenly hostess.”
Deirdre put her hands on her hips. “If he’s up there consorting with some other woman, he better run like hell when I get there.”
That made me laugh. “Toward the end of the dream he told me to pay attention to my wife and that upset me. That’s when I yelled and woke up.”
“I know it’s hard for you, Liam. It hasn’t been easy for any of us.”
I turned away from the pictures to see Megan and McLaughlin enter the chapel to pay their respects. They even stayed during Father Sweeney’s prayer vigil. I was thanking them for their condolences when Riley came bursting into the chapel with an envelope in his hand. He went straight to McLaughlin and shook it in the air.
“I stopped by my house on the way here and guess what was stuck in my mailbox,” he said. “This! This goddam picture. Just like Uncle Eamon.” He had sweat on his brow, his face was flushed, and his jaw was quivering. He pulled out the photograph and handed it to McLaughlin. “Walker’s house. Read the words on the back.”
McLaughlin read them out loud. “‘Two down. How many to go? As many as it takes! Up the Union. Down the murdering Taggarts.’”
If this was to be a call to arms, nowhere did it resonate any louder than it did with Conor. “Over my dead body, you Walker bastards,” he shouted. Then he turned to McLaughlin. “What are you going to do about this? You and the PSNI? Are you going to arrest Walker or is this just tossed aside with all the other Catholic victims?”
McLaughlin, to his credit, remained calm and just nodded. “We’ll give it our highest attention, Mr. Taggart. You can be assured that we’re not brushing you aside.”
“Horseshit,” Conor said and stormed out of the chapel.
I looked at Megan. “Still not convinced that the Walkers or their confederates are behind this?” I said.
“No, I’m not. It seems all too obvious, too brazen.”
“You think it’s a diversionary tactic?”
“I do. It’s a hall of mirrors,” she whispered.
“Who’s behind it then? Riley? He seems genuinely upset to me. Same with Conor.”
Megan nodded. “They do. Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s someone else. Whoever it is wants us to think it’s the Walkers.”
TWENTY
THE SKIES WERE DARK and dismal on the morning of Uncle Eamon’s funeral, a clear reflection of our mood. Beneath our black umbrellas, we all filed into the church vestibule. Hadn’t we just been here at St. Michael’s? Didn’t we just eulogize a loving uncle? Once again, we stood behind a casket and followed it inside to the disconsolate strains.
Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountainside
The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying
’Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.
Once again, Uncle Robert took to the pulpit. This time he was physically and emotionally drained. His voice was barely audible. His hands shook as they held his notes. He delivered his eulogy with a mixture of sorrow and anger. “We are fighting a specter in the dark,” he said. “Come forth! Confront us in the daylight.”
He wiped his eyes. “My brother Eamon was a gentle soul. At eighty-two he was a threat to no one. Brutally struck down and taken from us by a cowardly murderer. One that will pay, I promise you.”
“Hear, hear.”
“Still, let us not focus on despair. Let us join in affirming Eamon’s life. The happier times. His wisdom. His warmth. His crooked smile and the way he’d stare you down through the corners of his eyes. He was my older brother, my mentor, my protector. Woe be to any bully who picked on me in the schoolyard, for he’d have to answer to Eamon Taggart.” At that, he choked up and his legs were unsteady. “I’ll miss him so dearly.” Uncle Robert couldn’t go on and Janie rushed up to help him back to his seat. He sobbed loudly and his profound sadness touched us all.
We listened to a few more eulogies before the priest resumed the service. I leaned over and whispered to Janie, “Where’s Charles?”
She nodded. “Last-minute trip to the continent. He offered to stay, but I told him to go.”
I saw what appeared to be a bruise beside her right eye, covered with a thin mask of makeup. “Are you okay?” I said.
“Me? Sure. You mean between Charles and me, is everything okay? Is that what you’re asking?”
I nodded.
“We’re fine. No problems.” She leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Don’t be a worrier.”
During communion Janie tapped me on the arm and said, “Do you see her?”
I looked at her quizzically. “See who?”
“Annie. She’s here, sitting in the back. I didn’t notice where she was until her row went up for communion. She stayed seated. You know, Jewish and all.”
I turned and our eyes locked for a moment. Her lips formed a sweet smile in recognition, then the communicants filed back into their seats and blocked my vision.
“I didn’t see her at Uncle Fergus’s funeral,” I said to Janie.
“She was there. She has remained close to your uncles throughout the years, but I don’t think she wanted to be noticed at the funeral.”
The mass was finished. The priest gave his benediction and the congregants stood to file out of the church and down to the graveyard. Annie was waiting for me outside the church doors. She gave me a cordial kiss on the cheek, one reserved for greeting acquaintances. It felt uncomfortable.
“Hello, Liam. It’s nice to see you again. I’m sorry it took these tragedies to bring you back.”
I nodded. “Me too.” We turned to join the crowd walking down the hillside.
“You’re looking great,” she said. “How is life in America?”
I shrugged and smiled. “It’s good, Annie. I’m married and we have a ten-month-old boy. His name is Ben.”
“I know. I’m very happy for you.” Annie was still beautiful, still enchanting. Sixteen years had passed since she was twenty-four, since she told me good-bye. She was now more elegant than cute, but either way, there was no denying her allure.
“Thanks. And you? How is it going?”
She smiled demurely. “Same old Annie. Still teaching. Still volunteering. I took over some of my father’s charities and a small foundation. He died in 2000, less than a year after you left.”
Her father, Jacob Grossman, was a powerful man who turned out to be the insurmountable impediment to the prospective union of Liam and Annie Taggart. Had he died before 1999, she’d no doubt be my wife, but that’s a scenario long ago discarded. “I’m sorry, Annie, he was an imposing figure and a prominent civic leader.”
“Yes, he was. Than
k you for that.”
A steady mist began to fall and we stood at the graveside, each of us with a black umbrella. It brought to mind Gustave Caillebotte’s, Paris Street; Rainy Day, one of Catherine’s favorite paintings and it made me homesick for Chicago. I missed Catherine. I missed Ben. I didn’t want to be standing here with Annie. I’d had more than enough of Northern Ireland and memories of what was and what might have been. My prayers at the gravesite included a wish for a swift end to this assignment and a prompt return home. I am not an Irishman anymore.
As we walked back up the hill, Annie said, “We should really get together and catch up one day while you’re here.” She wrote her number on a piece of paper and handed it to me, just like she did seventeen years ago.
I nodded. “That would be nice,” I said, though I was pretty sure I would never do so.
In the parking lot, Megan told me that a silver GMC had been found abandoned in a quarry not far from Coleraine. The interior had been badly torched and no identifiable prints were obtained. There were traces of Eamon’s red Toyota on the bumper. The car was registered to Damon Gladley, who had reported it stolen ten days ago. Gladley was a sheep farmer with no police history, and as far as they could tell, he had no connection to the Butchers or any other paramilitary organization.
The post-funeral plans included a lunch at Bailey’s and that’s where everyone was headed. I wanted to call Catherine, but I had forgotten my cell phone back at the house and I told the group I’d catch up with them. As I approached Deirdre’s driveway, I caught sight of a motorcycle pushed deep into the bushes. I left the car at the end of the driveway and quietly approached the house from the north side.
A stout man in a tattered jeans jacket and checkered woolen cap was eyeing the front door, a canvas gym bag in his hand. He looked from side to side and stood on his tiptoes to stare in the window. The rain had intensified, which silenced my approach from behind. I saw him reach into his bag and extract a half-filled soda bottle and a torch. I watched him prepare to light the wick and I stuck the barrel of my Glock on the back of his neck.
The Trust Page 17