by Anne Emery
The instant the band announced a break, Louanne filled the silence. “So Brennan. What’s your line? Are you a lawyer too? Or a client?” She laughed, and turned to Rosemary. “Kind of looks like a hit man, doesn’t he?”
“You’ve never been safer in your life,” he answered.
“Oh yeah? What do you do?” Louanne persisted.
“I’m a priest, an expert on the Holy Trinity. Is there anything you’d like to know about it?”
“You’re shittin’ me. I don’t see any collar here —” She reached over and pulled at the neck of his sweater. He took her hand gently and put it back on the table.
“Is he?” Louanne turned to me.
“Afraid so,” I confirmed.
Rosemary nudged me with her knee and whispered: “What do you know? For once I’m on the right side of the table. Any other time I’ve gone out for a drink with Lou, I ended up driving her and some guy somewhere and going home by myself.”
“If you’re alone at the end of an evening, it could only be by choice,” I whispered back.
“Very gallant of you, Monty. But you’re right for the most part. The type of man you meet in a bar — present company excepted, I hope — is not usually the type you want to go home with. And the more persistent they are, the more likely they are to be bad news.”
“Well, I promise not to persist. But you don’t have to go home by yourself if you don’t want to. Is William taken care of for the night?”
“He’s with a sitter.” Music in my ears. Time to stop hitting the booze. I ordered club sodas for both of us.
At that point, our senses were caressed by a smouldering female voice. She started with a quiet, slow-burning little number I didn’t know. Then she launched into a scorching, estrogen-fired version of “It’s a Man’s World.” I took a break from chatting up Rosemary to give my attention to the tall, dark-haired siren at the microphone. I looked at Burke and saw that he was transfixed, oblivious of everything else in the room. Louanne sulked and downed her drink. When the woman brought the song to its blistering conclusion, the crowd went wild with applause. Everyone applauded, that is, except Brennan; the song hadn’t ended for him. He continued to gaze at her, then nodded his head in acknowledgement.
Rosemary and I were doing a bit of a shuffle about whether to order another club soda. Brennan, after snapping out of his reverie, read the signs and leaned towards me. “Take both of them.”
“Both of them!” I exclaimed, seeing not the upright priest of tonight but his younger self in the sack with two women while deadly smoke curled up through the floor boards.
“I mean,” he said with exaggerated patience, “when you leave with Rosemary, take Louanne with you and make sure she’s safely on her way home. She’s had a skinful.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stay for the last set and head home to bed.”
Rosemary announced to Louanne that the special bus was leaving. Resigned, she gave a theatrical sigh and made ready to leave. “Good night, Father. “
“Good night, dear. Safe home.” He smiled at Louanne for the first time, and her eyes lingered on him before she turned and walked out.
The night ended for me shortly after that. When we got to Jersey, Louanne wailed that she had forgotten her bag, and her house keys, in the bar. Could she stay the night with Rosemary? She could, and I didn’t.
But that bit of frustration was soon forgotten, as events careened out of control in Halifax.
Chapter 10
You got my attention, now go ahead speak.
What was it you wanted, when you were kissing my cheek?
Was there somebody looking when you gave me that kiss?
Someone there in the shadows, someone that I might have missed?
— Bob Dylan, “What Was It You Wanted?”
I
The call came on Victoria Day, five days after my return from New York. I was spending the late May holiday with Tom and Normie, playing catch and goofing around in the backyard. Now Rowan Stratton’s announcement: he had reliable information that Brennan Burke could be arrested as early as the following morning on two counts of first-degree murder. The police had physical evidence tying Burke to both victims. And there was apparently a connection between a mark left on the bodies and the cross-shaped scar Rowan had described when this all began. A crucifix had imprinted itself on Brennan’s flesh in the heat of the infamous fire back in i960.
Brennan was not home when Rowan tried to reach him. I said I would take it from there, and I tried the rectory half an hour later. Father Burke was out for dinner. I did not hear from him until nearly ten that night.
“Monty. Brennan here. You called.”
“Yes. I have something to discuss with you.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’d rather see you in person. At your place.”
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“See you when you get here.” Click.
I drove downtown at top speed and went up to Brennan’s room. He came to the door in cut-off shorts and a worn black T-shirt.
“We have to talk, Brennan.”
“Surely we do, if you’ve come all this way at night. But listen to this first. Have a seat.” He moved some theological texts from a chair. “I’ve been asked to be guest conductor of the Halifax Symphony and the Recordare Chorus, for a segment of their concert next winter. Mozart’s Coronation Mass, and the Kyrie in D Minor. Now if that Kyrie doesn’t terrorize you back into the church, I don’t know what will. The opening chord —”
“Brennan! Listen to me.”
“You’ve got me troubled, Monty.”
I took a deep breath. “First things first. Take off your shirt.” “What?”
“Let me see the scar. The imprint from that fire.”
“You’re losing me here.”
“It’s part of the evidence against you. Now show it to me.”
He gripped the arms of the chair and slowly stood up, never taking his eyes off my face.
“Evidence? It’s not evidence of anything. What the fuck are you talking about?” His quiet tone was more menacing than a shout as he moved towards me.
I stepped back. There was a real possibility that this man, a priest and a friend, was in fact a killer. I told myself not to be so melodramatic.
“Rowan’s been in touch with the police, Brennan. You’re facing arrest as early as tomorrow. Two charges of murder. Leeza Rae, Tanya Cudmore.”
His eyes moved to the closed door and back to my face. He took another step towards me. “I can’t be hearing you right.”
“There’s a mark on each of the bodies that matches what you’re supposed to have. I’ve never seen it.” I tried to put aside my apprehension as the news sunk in.
The next thing I knew he was stripping off his T-shirt, revealing a muscular chest and abdomen. Branded there just above his heart was the small, nearly complete image of a cross. The vertical bar was deeper and darker near the top, as was part of the crosspiece on Brennan’s left. The rest of the image was more faint. It looked as if the original metal crucifix had been slightly off centre and embedded unevenly in his skin. I examined the image for a long while, then looked up at his face, which was drawn and grey.
“Get me out of this,” he whispered.
“I need some information. Put your shirt back on. I have to know how many people have seen that scar.”
“What can I tell you? Everybody knows about it. All the old souls in the parish back home loved the story, little Brennan Burke being given a clout by God on the way to Damascus. The prodigal choirboy. On and on a
nd fucking on.”
“I didn’t ask how many people know about it; I asked how many have seen it.”
“How the hell can I answer that?”
“Try. If it wasn’t you who killed those two women —”
“Monty, for the love of Christ. You know I didn’t kill anyone!”
“So it was somebody else. Somebody who wants to frame you or connect you to the killings. Now who would want to do that? I have to know.”
“I have no idea. I can’t imagine.”
“All right. Let’s go back to who could have seen the scar. I think we can leave aside, for the moment anyway, casual observers at the pool, or anything like that. We’re looking for someone very familiar with that imprint. Now, tell me. Who?”
“Well, Monty, I don’t get around much. Being a celibate priest and all.”
I made an effort not to lose patience. “Very well. Let’s start with people in this building. Do you go around with your shirt off here in the rectory? Would the other priests, the housekeeper, whoever is here, would they have seen it?”
“There’s only one other priest in this rectory. Mike O’Flaherty. We don’t sit around with our shirts off, but he may have been in here when I’ve come out of the shower. I don’t remember that happening, but I can’t say it never did. And the housekeeper? Never. She’d be shocked that there’s anything made of flesh under the priestly garb.”
“People you exercise with, lift weights, go to the gym with?”
“I use a set of weights in the basement once in a while. Alone. When I go out for a walk, guess what, I’m fully dressed.”
On to the next set of questions. I did not see this — premeditated murder followed by mutilation — as a woman’s crime. But if we could eliminate all female suspects, we could move on to the men. And of course the police had a man in the frame for these murders: Burke himself.
“Fine. Who have you slept with?”
“What the fuck? Nobody.”
I lost it. “If you fucking lie to me, Burke, life as you know it ends tonight. I won’t be able to defend you. I happen to know you’re not exactly a virgin. So let’s not hear —”
“Not a requirement of the job,” he snapped. “You have to keep it in your pants afterwards, not before.”
“We’re not talking about before, are we? We’re talking about the time after you got burned with that crucifix. When you decided to become a priest. From that time on —”
“Who have I shagged?” He looked as if he wanted to clock me. Then he sighed. “My girlfriend. Old flame. Way back. Would she fly to Halifax, find two strangers, murder them and carve them up in the hopes that someone would connect them with me? Is that what you’re wondering? If she was going to carve anyone up, it would be me. Or would have been, thirty years ago. But she wouldn’t. She’s not the type. She didn’t even shed a tear when we split up. She just said: ‘If you’re going, go. Don’t waste any more of my time.’ And gave me a withering look till I finally backed myself out the door. She wasn’t one to put her feelings on show, especially in front of some cad who had just told her he didn’t love her anymore.”
“You didn’t love her?”
“I told her I didn’t. But it was bullshit.” The expression on his face softened. “Of course I loved her. But I reasoned that she’d find it easier to write me off if she thought I was a complete arsehole who didn’t care about her. Or some religious nut who didn’t have normal feelings for a woman. She hadn’t lost anything then. It was better than having her think of us as two star-crossed lovers separated only by the seminary walls.”
“Which was in fact the truth.”
“Which was the truth, yes.”
“What women have there been since then?”
“None.”
I didn’t buy it but I’d have to let it go. For now. “All right. Men. Shagged any of those?”
“Oh, fuck off, Collins.”
“Don’t get prim with me, Brennan. I don’t care how you get your tail —”
“What is it about ‘fuck off’ you don’t understand?”
“Well, you must have crossed paths with some gay men —”
“I’ve crossed paths with Scotsmen. That hasn’t given me any desire to blow the bagpipes.”
I went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “If there’s anything like that, I have to know. The police aren’t going to be looking for a woman. After all, they’re looking at you. So help me here.”
“There have been no men in my life, Montague,” he said in a voice laden with sarcasm, then continued more calmly: “Like you, I don’t care how people get their tail. I suspect God doesn’t either. If I were banging all the Daughters of Mary Immaculate, God probably wouldn’t give a shit as long as I was performing the sacraments and otherwise being a good priest. But I’ve signed up for the life, made my promises and tried to stick to them. I’ve done just about everything else in my time, but boys? No.”
I made a note of that “tried to” for future reference, but I had heard enough on the subject for one night. I wondered whether Burke appreciated the fact that his inability or unwillingness to name anyone who had a grudge against him, and intimate knowledge of his body, only served to tighten the noose around his neck.
II
The first thing I had to do was head off an egregious show of police power at St. Bernadette’s in the morning. Brennan sat straddling a chair and gazing out the window, and I looked past him, imagining police cars roaring up to the door of the rectory at the break of dawn. I had no intention of seeing my client and his church humiliated by the drama of Father Burke being led out of the rectory in handcuffs and shoved into a police cruiser. I got on the phone to Rowan, who was already working the system so Brennan could turn himself in at the station. I could not imagine the police objecting; a surrender puts the accused on the cops’ turf right from the beginning, which is to their advantage. It was just a matter of working out the details. My client retreated into his thoughts as the hours ground on. Rowan finally called to say the surrender had been worked out, at which point Brennan turned and asked through clenched teeth how long I thought he’d be away from home.
I was destined to be the bearer of bad tidings for as long as I could see into the future. I took a deep breath and began to outline just how little control he now had over his place in the world. “I’ll probably be able to get you out, more likely than not, but...” His eyes were locked on my face; he wasn’t moving a muscle. “But it’s not a sure thing, and it won’t happen right away. It could be a few days. Or longer. Because the charge is murder, the onus is on us to convince the judge there will be no harm in releasing you until your trials.” I could almost see the animation leaching out of him as he listened to my words. “And that’s another obstacle, it goes without saying. Two murder charges. If they consider you a serial killer —”
“What!” he yelped.
“Two murders, unrelated victims, three months apart. From their point of view —”
“I’m not a killer at all, for Jesus’ sake, let alone a serial killer. I can’t believe I heard that phrase coming out of your mouth.”
“It’s not me, Brennan. This is the situation you’re facing. A serial — a person like that is obviously considered much more dangerous to the public than the guy who kills his drinking buddy. Now, as I said, there is a possibility you will be released.”
“You said ‘probably’!”
“Only if we can convince the judge you’re not a flight risk or a danger to the public. You’re facing the most severe penalty in the Criminal Code, life in prison with no chance of parole for twenty-five years.” He looked ready to expire in front of my eyes. “This of course makes it more likely a person will flee rather than face a tr
ial. And the likelihood of conviction has a bearing on whether you, or whoever, will make a run for it. So I assume the Crown — the prosecutor, that is — will lay out the case against you. We’ll counter with your stellar character, the fact that you don’t have a criminal record or a psychiatric history, if in fact those two statements are correct.”
“Fuck you, Collins. I can’t believe this. What do you mean ‘if’? You think I’ve got a record, and a history as a psycho? How are you going to be able to represent me if you —”
“The only way I can represent you effectively is if I know you, and your life history, warts and all, so I don’t walk in there like a little woolly lamb to the slaughterhouse. I intend to establish from day one our line of attack, that this is a miscarriage of justice, that an innocent man must not be made to sit in jail for months on end while the process drags on, the implication being there will be hell to pay for this later on.”
“And my chances?”
“It’s not a sure thing but I’d say you have a good chance if —”
“How long before I go to trial?”
“That will be months down the road. First there will be a preliminary inquiry, unless we waive —”
“Months! What’s this preliminary? We can waive it? Skip whatever you can skip, if they bang me up in there for the duration. The sooner this is over...” He wound down, and sat there massaging his greying temples.
I did not have the heart to point out the obvious: that it might never be over.
“We’ll request a ban on publication of all evidence adduced at the bail hearing, and the ban will be granted. If you’re released, you’ll need a surety, someone to put up some money to guarantee that you will not flee the country.”
“God Almighty. This is where the old lady always signs over her house, isn’t it?”
“There will be conditions, such as reporting once a week and surrendering your passport.”