Death at Christy Burke's

by Anne Emery

  “How long has it been since the last incidence of graffiti?” Monty asked. “Three weeks? Nearly four. Do you suppose the problem might have just gone away, and there’s no need for any more investigation?”

  “I think we’d best keep at it,” Brennan replied.

  They all looked at him with interest, obviously waiting for more. But Brennan was not prepared to say any more, not prepared to reveal that the only reason the problem appeared to have gone away was that the vandal had been shot while delivering his last message, and that their project was in reality a murder investigation.

  There was a long moment of silence, then Monty spoke again. “Let’s get back to politics and history.” He directed a pointed glance at Brennan. “I’m sure I’m not the only one in the room who would like to hear from Christy Burke’s grandson on the subject. So. Now that you’re on your native soil once again, Brennan, where do you stand?”

  No getting away from it this time. “I’ve had to wrestle with that question all my life.” He paused to light up a cigarette, inhaled a lungful of smoke — ah! — and let it out. “If I were transported back in time to 1919, I’d have stood with a Collins even grander than yourself, that being Mick Collins.”

  It was comical in a way. Monty, who was half-Irish, was not interested enough in Irish history, while Michael O’Flaherty was too interested by half and might get himself into trouble one of these days.

  “Collins, when are you ever going to get off your hole and do some research, see if you’re related?”

  Kitty turned to Michael. “Monsignor, next time you hear this man’s confession, be sure to add two decades of the rosary for language displeasing to God.”

  “Sorry,” Brennan said, “but really this fellow is such a bollocks.”

  “Make that three decades, Monsignor.”

  “I’ll do that, Sister. Last time, I gave him the stations of the cross three times as a penance, but it seems not to have had any effect on him. Incorrigible, I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t be changing the subject, which is this fellow here.” Brennan pointed at Monty.

  “Leave me out of it, Burke. The subject is you and your politics. Get on with it.”

  “All right. Where would I have been during the Troubles? I’d have been with Christy, waging war against the Brits until we brought them to their knees. And we did bring them to their knees. The odds against that were astronomical; I still marvel over it seventy-one years after the fact. No question of where I would have stood to that point. But what about afterwards, when the war was over and the treaty signed? Would it have galled me to have to swear an oath of allegiance to the English king? Would it have stuck in my craw to see the six counties excluded from the new country? Of course it would have.”

  He had only to remember how it had galled him to be stopped and searched by British soldiers at the border in Armagh; on that occasion, it was all he could do to resist the impulse to take that little Tan fucker and kick him back to Coventry. And then he’d had to serve Holy Mass in front of a phalanx of British armoured cars at the funeral for Rory Dignan. Did he wish it was otherwise? Obviously.

  “But that was the reality of 1921. We were not going to get out of the oath. Although nobody at the time, at least in this part of the country, thought the border was permanent, we were not going to have the six counties. It’s a wonder we got anything. With the treaty, we became the Irish Free State. We had our own government, our own army, our own police force.

  “With all that Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy and the others had achieved, would I then, after fighting at their side to the point of that magnificent achievement, have turned a gun on them because we didn’t get it all in 1921? That’s what would have been required of me if I were to stay with Christy and the Irregulars after the treaty was signed.” Brennan took another lungful of nicotine, expelled it. “Somebody turned a gun on Collins when he was commander-in-chief of our national army. Cut him down before he reached the age of thirty-two. It wouldn’t have been me.”

  He picked up his glass of whiskey and downed half of it. “And it’s still going on. I would love to see a united Ireland. But would I blow people’s legs off to get it? Same old question: does the end justify the means? How can I say yes to that?”

  Monty asked, “How do you deal with this, you and your dad? And Finn?”

  “We don’t.”

  “So you make these periodic visits to Dublin, and you see your uncle Finn . . .”

  “He’s not the only person I see in this city.”

  “. . . and you don’t talk about his politics.”

  The MacNeil came aboard him then. “Well, we shouldn’t be all that surprised. How much does this guy ever tell us about himself? And think about his father. Declan Burke. Shot in front of all the guests at a family wedding. And when Declan recovers, and the New York cops try to solve the crime, Declan won’t tell them anything. Brennan and Monty launch an investigation on their own; Declan won’t open his mouth to help them. Was there an Irish connection to the attempt on your life, Da? Silence. He wouldn’t talk about it. So why should it surprise any of us that Brennan visits Ireland and spends all his time drinking in his uncle’s pub, a pub steeped in the uncle’s Republican history, and they don’t talk about it? The men in that family are all cut from the same cloth, as far as I can see.” Her eyes searched his face. “But, Brennan, tell us this. How would you and your uncle know, without ever talking about it, that this is something the two of you should avoid talking about?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  After a few minutes Kitty said lightly, “All that painful history, and the politics, and we have all the personal baggage that everybody else has, on top of it all. No wonder the pubs do such a roaring business on this island!”

  “I read somewhere that there are a thousand pubs in Dublin now.”

  “Monty, my dear, that’s nothing new!” Kitty scoffed. “‘And when Ferdiad was come into the camp, he was honoured and waited on, and choice, well-flavoured strong liquor was poured out for him till he was drunken and merry.’ That’s from the Táin, the Cattle Raid of Cooley, one of the classics of ancient Irish literature, a recitation of events that may have occurred as long ago as two thousand years. Another reference to drink in the epic says that ‘only’ fifty wagons of the stuff were brought to the camp. So we were at it even then. Did you know that by the late seventeenth century there were fifteen hundred taverns and alehouses in this city? A century later the number had doubled! But we needn’t feel any guilt. What did Flann O’Brien call our pubs? ‘Licensed tabernacles’!”

  Michael

  Michael O’Flaherty’s mind had not been at ease since Wednesday, when he returned to Dublin from the North. He and the others had gathered some distressing information about Jimmy O’Hearn and Frank Fanning, and they would have to figure out how it fit, if at all, with the menacing graffiti at Christy Burke’s. And where had Frank gone?

  But Michael had a bit of a social event to distract him for now. He and Leo Killeen were entertaining at home that evening. Well, Leo was the host; the gathering was in his room, because Father Grattan was receiving parish visitors in the “good room” downstairs. Brennan, Monty, and Kitty were the guests. Little Dominic had a fever so Maura and the children sent their regrets. But the other five made a festive evening of it. They borrowed chairs from Michael’s room, and Michael provided the refreshments: wine, whiskey, tea, and biscuits from a family-owned bakery in the neighbourhood. Kitty, Leo, and Brennan reminisced about their respective childhoods in Dublin, and the craic was good indeed.

  But Brennan’s childhood memories included the family pub, so the subject of the Christy Burke Four came up once again.

  Monty turned to Michael. “Sergeant O’Flaherty, why don’t you give us a report on your trip to Donegal?”

  So Michael gave them an account of the O’Hearns’ loss o
f the family enterprise. “Imagine the family being swindled by their own lawyer!” he exclaimed to Monty.

  “They’re not the first to have suffered that fate, Michael, unfortunately. I remember a case in Halifax where the lawyer stole his clients’ money, and the clients lost their house as a result. The day the client and her family moved out, the day they had to drag their suitcases down the front steps of their home for the very last time, they met the lawyer coming up the stairs moving in!”

  “No!”

  “I couldn’t make it up, Michael.”

  “Monty, sometimes I wonder how a fine fellow like yourself can get up and go in to work every day, the things you see in your job.”

  “Sometimes I ask myself the same question.”

  “So here we have the O’Hearns who were known far and yon for their boats. They were all brought up at the water’s edge. You’d almost think their lungs could breathe salt water, the way Sarah tells it. Their life’s work, their vocation, all that history. A hundred and fifty years. And they had it stolen from them. The father of the family must be spinning in his grave. Died of a broken heart, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “And the lawyer was never prosecuted,” Monty remarked. “I find that strange.”

  “Niall Duffy told me the lawyer has . . . disappeared.”

  “I see.”

  “But I’m wondering . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, the graffiti depicts somebody in Christy’s as a killer and, well . . . I guess what I’m saying, Monty, is . . . no, the idea is absurd.”

  “What idea is that, Mike?

  He looked around the room, then mumbled, “Maybe the lawyer was . . . bumped off!”

  “You think O’Hearn killed the lawyer.”

  “Well, stated as baldly as that, it does sound ridiculous. I’m not thinking it, exactly, just wondering. But if we could trace the lawyer somehow, see where he went, and then find out if he’s still breathing —”

  “I should be able to help you there, Mike, at least if he’s still practising. What’s his name?”

  “Gilbert.”

  “Is that his first name or his last?”

  “Hold on a second while I get my notebook.” Michael went to his room and returned with his little black book.

  “Sure you’re never off duty, Sergeant O’Flaherty, with your notebook at hand,” Brennan said to him.

  “Were your notes made contemporaneously with the events described therein, Sergeant?” Monty asked, in the tones of a courtroom lawyer.

  “Remind me, Kitty,” Michael said, “not to invite my two little brothers along on my next trip abroad. They are nothing but a nuisance, and they do not understand the gravity of the adult matters the rest of us are called upon to deal with.”

  “Michael, acushla, all you can do is ignore them. Eventually, they’ll tire of their little games and go away.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Sister. Carey Gilbert, of London,” he announced, after flipping through the pages of the infamous notebook and finding his entries for County Donegal.

  “All right. I’ll see what I can find out on the phone from the law society over there.”

  “Oh, would you, Monty? That would be grand.”

  “Think nothing of it!”

  Michael turned to Brennan and asked him, “Have you filled your uncle in on the results of our efforts so far?”

  “I’ve told him we don’t yet know who was the target of the graffiti. That’s all he’ll want to know.”

  Well, that was that. Brennan knew Finn better than Michael did. They would have to come up with more concrete results.

  They took the time to refresh their tea, and the plate of biscuits made the rounds. The talk turned again to the old days, and Leo began regaling them with a tale about someone named Seamus Neary.

  “Seamus served with me back in the day. Served time with me, I should say. This was when I was in Mountjoy Prison. More than one person in this room is familiar with the Joy. You probably know from Brennan here that his father, Declan, served time there in the 1940s; we both did.”

  Michael nodded his head, Kitty raised her eyebrows, Brennan remained impassive, and Monty smiled.

  “Anyway, the reason Seamus was serving time was that they picked him up in Kilcullen. He was there to liberate some rifles he knew were in the possession of certain citizens of the town. Weapons that could be put to better use by those of us promoting the cause of a united Ireland. It was taking Seamus a while to build his collection. So Sunday rolled round, and Seamus did his duty as a good Catholic boy and went to Mass. The Garda Síochána were always on the lookout for a new face in the local church. Stranger in town attending Mass for the first time? Could be an IRA man, and should be watched after leaving the church steps. They got him all right. And he wasn’t the first caught that way, by any means.” Leo paused and took a sip of his tea. “The lads who are active in the North today, well, I wonder how much Mass-going there is amongst them. But back to poor Seamus. His commanding officer sent him a rocket. Didn’t tell him to stay away from Mass, mind. But ‘get your job done and be home by Sunday, and worship in your own parish. Carry out your patriotic duties on the other six days.’

  “Now, Seamus was a comical card and he was in the Joy with us and he stretched a bit of boot leather over a frame and made himself some class of a bodhran to keep time with, and he gave us a song:

  Come all ye young fellows who love our dear land.

  We need Volunteers to lend us a hand.

  The work doesn’t pay like the post office grand

  But on Sunday your posts don’t have to be manned.

  The Republic of Ireland won’t be built in a day

  And not on the Sabbath, our great leaders say,

  For at Mass we’ll be kneeling on every Sunday

  And give only six days to the bold IRA.

  “Well, the lads were nearly wetting themselves because what Seamus didn’t know was that his commanding officer had just been nicked and was there in the gloom, and Seamus couldn’t see him, so he carried on with the song, and it got a bit intimate about the officer, and him there in the dark in the Joy hearing every word of it. Seamus went on about the man sitting at the archbishop’s table on Sundays, and them helping themselves to lashings of drink, and it got a bit sacrilegious and the boys were urging him on —”

  The ring of the telephone startled them, so immersed were they in the past. Leo was still smiling when he reached over and picked up the phone. “Hello.” The smile vanished. “Where?” He listened for several seconds and never said another word into the phone. He replaced the receiver and rose from his seat. He turned his back to his guests, opened his desk drawer and took something out, shoved it into his pants pocket, then addressed his company. “I have to go.”

  “What is it, Leo?” Brennan asked.

  Leo didn’t answer, just shook his head.

  “Let me go with you,” Brennan said then.

  Another shake of the head.

  “Should we wait for you here?” asked Kitty.

  “No.”

  It was Michael’s turn. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “No,” he answered. Then he said, “Pray.”

  With that, Leo grabbed a set of keys from a hook by the door and left the room.

  The others sat in uneasy silence till Monty spoke up. “It could be anything. But do you suppose it’s the preacher?”

  “I’d lay odds on it,” Brennan replied. “The question is . . .”

  “Is he alive?” Monty filled in. “I have a feeling the answer is no. The only thing Leo asked was ‘where.’ Nothing about his condition.”

  “I wonder how far poor Leo has to go tonight,” Kitty said.

  “Far enough so it’s across the border, I’m hoping,” Brennan muttered in reply.


  Brennan

  Brennan had no luck reaching Leo the following day, and there was no news, good or bad, on the radio or television about the Reverend Merle Odom. Or, Brennan reflected later, about young Clancy.

  Michael O’Flaherty was scheduled to say the noontime Mass in Irish at the Aughrim Street church, so Brennan offered to serve on the altar. When Mass was done, Brennan commended Michael on a job well done, and they decided to have lunch at Michael’s place and then head over to Christy’s.

  The priests’ housekeeper, Mrs. O’Grady, made them roast lamb sandwiches on crusty bread, and she had a chocolate cake on hand for dessert, so they thanked her profusely. When she was out of earshot, Michael brought up Leo’s hasty departure of the previous night, and said he had not seen Leo since. What did Brennan make of that?

  “That phone call and that hasty departure don’t bode well for the situation on this island, I’m thinking.”

  “So you think it’s the Belfast crisis.”

  “I do. I just hope I’m wrong, but somehow I doubt it.”

  “You think the minister’s been killed.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Brennan, I can hardly bear to imagine what might happen as a result.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  And Michael didn’t even know about the Clancy disappearance. If the bishop’s nephew had been snatched as well, what hope would there be now for his safe return to Dublin? Of course he may already have suffered the same fate as Odom. If so, were they in for a spate of Catholic-Protestant kidnappings and killings, each one avenging the other? Would the events involve people in religious life, or their families? But this was nothing but grim speculation.

  “Something occurs to me, Brennan, as bad as things might be.” Michael leaned forward and spoke in earnest. “This could be a wake-up call. At last. If poor Odom has been killed, God rest his soul, surely there will be an international outcry. This man is an American, and you know how they are about their own. Foreigners dying, that’s one thing. Too bad, pass the butter please. But an American? Well, that’s another matter entirely. The U.S. might bring so much pressure to bear on the authorities in the North, and perhaps the authorities here in the South, to get this sorted . . . I mean if Northern Ireland comes under the scrutiny of the international community in light of this, perhaps something good could come out of it in the end. Not that I’m downplaying what has probably happened to that poor man. But something will break the cycle, something will lead to peace, now or in the not-too-distant future. I’m sure of it.”