St Ernan's Blues: An Inspector Starrett Mystery

by Paul Charles

  As Starrett searched, he began to focus on possible theories – he found it helped him deal with the situation, down there, in the stale dry air of the basement. Could the reason for Father Matthew’s murder simply be that he’d uncovered Father McCafferty’s plan to swindle Mrs Orla O’Connor out of her house and possibly her inheritance? At the peak of the market, a few years ago, Mrs O’Connor’s house and land would have been worth between 1 and 1.3 million euro. These days she’d be lucky, very lucky, to be able to sell for half that. But then people had been murdered for a lot less than half a million – plus her inheritance, of course. Was that it? Had Father Matthew discovered Father McCafferty’s plan? Had he threatened to tell Orla or maybe Father O’Leary? Had he already told Father O’Leary and perhaps Father O’Leary was in cahoots with Father McCafferty and that was the reason why he’d led Browne and Starrett down into the basement and left the others involved in the scam to deal with them? It would certainly be a sure bet for Father Patrick ‘Please, Call Me Pat’ O’Connell. If he could put all he could raise on Father O’Leary not being involved in the scam, that, in Starrett’s book, would be as safe as going all in on Seabiscuit. Yes that certainly would go a long way to dissolving his money troubles.

  Through the final wall opening, towards the entrance, he thought he saw a shape slumped on the floor. He ran across to it, thinking it must be Browne and fearing the worst.

  It was Browne.

  He was alive, unconscious and bleeding from his forehead.

  While he examined his garda with one hand, he retained his tight grip on the lamp with the other. As this realisation was developing he suddenly became aware of this mass of darkness hurling at him, at vast speed from his right, from deep in the shadows of where the support wall joined the external wall. He was processing how to swing his lamp when out of the corner of his other eye he clocked another mass, this time definitely a figure – a plump figure –rushing at him from the opposite side. He jumped up, took a back-hand swing to his right and totally failed to connect, but the energy of his swing kept him turning and the lamp connected – and forcefully – with the figure coming at him from his left. Starrett floored the attacker with a single, but lucky, blow.

  At which point the mass approaching him from the right, who Starrett now recognised from the Buddy Holly glasses as being none other than Father Gene McCafferty, aka the Elephant Man, was upon him and battering him furiously with his fists, swearing profanely to assist himself with his efforts.

  A couple of the thumps connected solidly about Starrett’s chest. They didn’t hurt him, the adrenalin was seeing to that. He needed to keep Father McCafferty from landing one on his glass chin though, so he tried to keep the ball of fury at bay with his left hand, while taking aim with his right.

  Once again he totally missed his mark and immediately decided that next time he’d be less ambitious with his aim. This time he aimed at the weapons, which were doing the most damage to his upper body, that is to say Father McCafferty’s fists, particularly his left fist. Starrett went with all his might for another back-hand and he could hear the sound of bone cracking as his lamp connected with the priest’s left wrist. Father McCafferty screamed in agony but showed no signs of stopping. His tongue, if not his strength, was getting stronger by the second and he tried in vain to wrestle Starrett to the ground with one hand, knocking the detective over in the process. Grazed, bruised, winded, Starrett could think of nothing else to do but to shout at his opponent.

  ‘Stop man!’ he ordered.

  On and on the Elephant Man came, thumping and kicking for all his worth, one fist then two feet.

  ‘Right, feck this for a game of soldiers!’ Starrett shouted at the top of his voice, and, taking aim again, he screamed his favourite war cry. ‘This one is for all the marbles!’

  He swung his trusted lamp with all his might and it connected better now, this time with Father McCafferty’s right wrist, producing a crack so loud McCafferty’s startled eyes and open mouth reacted a split second before the resultant pain actually registered.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Cavalry arrived in the form of Father O’Leary and Father McIntyre. Starrett realised it wasn’t so much a re-enactment of the Battle of Little Big Horn, but more a tag-team wrestling match.

  It turned out that Father O’Leary had sent Father McKenzie, the other mass of darkness who had hurtled towards Starrett in the chaos, down to the basement after the two gardaí, in case they needed assistance. In fact, Father McKenzie had actually been in the process of setting into Father McCafferty as he – having already successfully felled one member of the gardaí – was clearly just about to get stuck into the other.

  Father O’Leary apologised to Starrett about the confusion of the fighting priests.

  ‘A bald man should never, ever fight over a comb – particularly with another bald man,’ was all Starrett would offer in comment.

  He helped Romany Browne to his feet. The blood on his forehead was not from an instrument of violence, but from scraping his forehead on the floorboards.

  ‘How many of me do you see?’ Starrett asked.

  ‘Just the one,’ Browne replied, as he dusted himself off.

  ‘You’re perfect then.’

  On the one hand, Father McCafferty had a broken wrist, and on the other hand he’d a broken wrist as well.

  Father O’Leary did the best he could to make Father McCafferty as comfortable as possible, instructing McKenzie to run upstairs and grab a couple of ice packs from the kitchen, which he then placed on McCafferty’s wrists. Browne looked on while his boss used the time to nip into the room behind the door where Father McCafferty had

  obviously been hiding. What he found there was a very cozy arrangement, which looked more like student accommodation than the basement of a priest’s retreat. It was obvious that Father McCafferty had decamped into the basement room, as he seemed to have all of his worldly possessions down there. Starrett dumped all that he thought was important, including a fat brown envelope containing hundreds, if not thousands, of euro, into two box files.

  An hour and a half later the detective was back in the ancient Garda Station House, in historic Gamble Square in Ramelton. He dumped the two box files on Francis Casey’s desk and as the garda with the afro hairstyle tore into them, Starrett figured he couldn’t have been more excited were the boxes filled with the sadly lamented Bakersville cheeseless cheesecakes. Francis admitted that he still had no joy locating Bishop Freeman.

  Starrett returned to his own office and the work of updating his notes and awaiting the arrival of Father McCafferty, who he’d left in Letterkenny General Hospital under the watchful eye of Garda Romany Browne. There was a wee bit of a buzz about the Station House, with some of the gardaí obviously feeling they’d got their man –it certainly looked that way, anyway. If not, why on earth would McCafferty hide in the basement for over a day? And why would he want to attack two members of the gardaí if, indeed, he was innocent? Yes, Starrett had to admit, being caught red-handed trying to swindle Mrs Orla O’Connor out of both her grand house and her inheritance, was a crime the priest with the elephant-ear elbows most certainly would do time for. Then he chastised himself: here he was doing what he always cautioned his team not to do: put the cart before the horse. ‘Deal only with the facts you have,’ he said to himself. And he turned to the page in his notebook reserved for McCafferty to refresh his memory of the priest’s alibi.

  He ran his finger down the page until, yes, there it was – Father Gene McCafferty had claimed to have been with one of the most beautiful women in County Donegal at the time of Father Matthew McKaye’s untimely demise. He had point-blank refused to offer any more information than that to Nuala Gibson when she had originally questioned him. Had that merely been bravado, purely for the benefit of Miss Gibson? Either way, there were just too many beautiful women in County Donegal for the gardaí to be able to find the one Father McCafferty was referring to. Perhaps they should start with
the blind ones, he reasoned, and then immediately dismissed the uncharitable thought.

  McCafferty eventually arrived in Ramelton just after two o’clock where he was processed and taken straight to the interview-room in the basement of the gardaí station. There he was confronted by Starrett and Nuala Gibson, fresh from a quick pit stop for coffee and raring to go. The priest looked pitiful, with both wrists bound in casts and resting just by his belt, either side of his stomach. For the foreseeable future, the priest would have to be spoon-fed, and that would be the least embarrassing of his worries.

  Before they’d a chance to even think of asking their first question, Father McCafferty started up with: ‘Don’t you realise that I’ve got a heart condition? You could’ve killed me!’

  ‘From where I was standing you were the one doing all the attacking,’ Starrett rightfully claimed.

  ‘Well, I thought I was being attacked by thieves,’ McCafferty protested, ‘I’d a right to be down there, you didn’t!’

  ‘Okay,’ Starrett said barely, just barely, managing to restrain himself from saying, “Whist! Would you give me head peace?” Instead he said, ‘Okay, let’s get started here,’ and went on to announce, for the benefit of the tape recorder, the time, the date, the fact that the priest did not want a solicitor present and the names and ranks of all those present. ‘So far so good,’ he said to himself, off microphone. ‘So,’ he continued, opening a file in front of him, ‘we know all about the activities in your previous two dioceses, before St Ernan’s. You admitted to Ban Garda Nuala Gibson that you had acquired some money. Now we know how.’

  ‘We’re sure, when we go through your files and all of your bank statements,’ Gibson added, ‘we’ll find just how much we’re talking about.’

  ‘How should I put this…’ Father McCafferty started, using one of his signature start-up lines.

  ‘Oh, you might like to try, “I’m totally fecked!”’, Starrett suggested to the crestfallen priest.

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of: I didn’t break any laws,’ the priest replied.

  ‘Really?’ Gibson shot back.

  ‘Look, I never forced any of them to give me anything; they were all willing participants in our agreements.’

  ‘That’s an interesting approach, Father Gene,’ Starrett said, ‘very interesting approach. I think you’ll find the authorities will take a completely different view on you and your scams. We’ve just recently visited Mrs Orla Robinson and I think you’ll have a lot of trouble persuading her that she was a “willing participant in your agreement”. But we can leave all of that to the fraud squad. In the meantime, we’d like to talk to you some more about the death of Father McKaye.’

  Father McCafferty didn’t show the slightest bit of concern apart, that was, from his usual ability to leak from all of his pores.

  ‘So listen, Father,’ Starrett said, not sure if he was amused or concerned about the ‘willing participant approach’, ‘here’s how I see it. You took Father Matt over to Mrs Robinson’s, you figured all the women were impressed by him, so Orla would take to him as well and that could only help your cause. And she did take to him. But then, bit by bit, didn’t he only go and discover what you were up to. My guess is that he either threatened to turn you over to the authorities or he tried to blackmail you into giving him a piece of the action. Either way, Father Matt ended up dead in St Ernan’s for his proposal.’

  ‘Okay, how should I put this, Inspector,’ McCafferty said, wincing in pain as he tried to rest his arm on the wing of his chair, ‘it would have been impossible for me to murder Father Matthew because I was elsewhere at the time of the murder.’

  ‘Yes, very interesting,’ Starrett said, hoping his waning patience was transparent. He read through Gibson’s report of the first interview with McCafferty.

  ‘Yes,’ he eventually continued, ‘here is it. You said during your interview with the Ban Garda that at the time of Father Matt’s death you were with the most beautiful woman in Donegal?’

  ‘It’s the same difference, but I actually said “the most beautiful woman in the county”.’

  ‘Sorry, I stand corrected,’ Starrett apologised, ‘you were with “the most beautiful woman in the county”.’

  ‘Yes,’ McCafferty grunted. His sunken eyes appeared to sink even further into his skull, most likely as a result of the painkillers starting to wear off. His Buddy Holly glasses certainly didn’t help, serving only to magnify the various shades of darkness around his eyes.

  ‘And do you want to give us any more clues to her actual identity?’ Starrett coaxed.

  ‘As I said before, a gentleman never tells.’

  ‘Well, we’re okay then, you’ll be free to talk,’ Starrett offered, but McCafferty didn’t take up on the slight. ‘You see that convinces me even more that you’re guilty, the fact that you created this fictional character you were supposedly with when Father Matt was murdered. And really if you were innocent, all you would need to do is give us the details of this mystery beauty and then we could check with her.’

  McCafferty tried a grin that didn’t really come off, as he was clearly now in bad need of some more medication.

  Starrett noticed McCafferty attempting to see if his thumbs would move through the cast, only for him to be rewarded with what looked like another lightning bolt of pain.

  ‘Augh, I wouldn’t bother if I was you,’ he offered compassionately, ‘thumbs are so overrated. Why do you think we need thumbs? Just think of how absolutely amazing it would be if we’d a fifth finger instead of a thumb!’

  ‘Well, we wouldn’t be able to shake hands,’ Gibson offered, looking and sounding like she was genuinely interested in the topic.

  ‘Think of all the germs we’d save ourselves from,’ Starrett replied, unable to avoid staring at McCafferty. He wished, for just a split second, that he was the kind of garda who would go to the lengths of putting pressure on one of McCafferty’s wrist to torture a confession out of him. But only for a split second.

  ‘So are you ashamed of this woman?’ he continued.

  ‘I bet she’s a hooker,’ Gibson volunteered barely under her breath.

  ‘Or perhaps a woman you’re setting up as the victim for your next scam?’ Starrett pushed.

  McCafferty was now sweating profusely and tears had started to fall down his face. He looked desperate. A full confession probably wasn’t too far away. The tape would show that it would be a fair confession.

  The priest’s eyes were now pleading with the inspector. But the inspector couldn’t work out if he was looking for forgiveness or painkillers. Come on man, you know you want to, Starrett said under his breath, as Gibson asked, ‘Look Father, do you want us to get one of the priests to sit in with you when you make your statement?’

  Clearly she too felt they were very close to the point of a full confession to the murder of Father Matthew McKaye. And he did make a confession. To the name of the woman, the most beautiful in all of the county – his alibi for where he was as Father Matthew McKaye lay dying in the kitchen at St Ernan’s. Yes, the beauty was a certain lady by the name Aoife Sweeney.

  Fifteen minutes later, Garda Francis Casey had uncovered an address in Donegal Town centre to fit the woman who owned the mobile number McCafferty had passed to his interviewers. Fifteen minutes after that, Romany Browne, who’d now made a full recovery, and Sergeant Packie Garvey were on their way to the very same address.

  In the meantime, the interview with Father Gene McCafferty was suspended until as such time as they reached Aoife Sweeney. The logic being, that when the alibi turned out to be a lie, as both Starrett and Gibson suspected, they could then use it as leverage to extract a full confession from the priest.

  That, at least, was Starrett’s theory.

  He would clear this case up today, which would allow him some quality time with the Major.

  He checked his notes again. There were still some leads he and his team could follow, and Casey and Gibson were diligently
working on them, but he really felt in limbo as they waited for the news from this Aoife Sweeney. Could this woman really be as beautiful as Father McCafferty claimed? If so, surely the next question had to be, what was she doing with Father McCafferty?

  What was it that a man saw in a woman vice versa that made the magnetic connection for them? Did it go beyond looks, perhaps to the spirit – was that the force beyond the physical attraction that sealed the connection? Starrett often noticed women going about their daily business and the way they’d unconsciously, adopt a harder ‘outdoor face’; a face well capable of cutting the ice of the worst mornings. But the minute they’d bump into someone they knew, the hard face would crack and melt into a friendly greeting and a large smile and in that moment their appearance would totally change, and they’d transform into a much more attractive being. Yes, there was nothing like a warm smile to make a woman glow – Starrett would have to put a smile high on the list of things he was attracted to. Even with Maggie Keane’s crooked front tooth, which gave her that unique lopsided grin when she tried to smile, it was based on an imperfection but it was still so very endearing. Maybe it was the impish wink with which her smile took its bow that made it work, well at least as far as Starrett was concerned it was.

  On the other hand, there were few things quite as unattractive as a woman crying. Crying ruined the lines of a woman’s face. He reckoned that was why so many actresses got crying so wrong in the movies; they were just never prepared to look so ugly on the big screen. And there were few things quite as sad, or unforgivable, as a man making a woman cry in public. It wasn’t so much the humiliation of physically crying in public, as the blatant display of force some people like to have over others, inflicted merely by the power of words.