Obit
Page 6
“Well, at least one of us feels better. Jesus, what a hellish night. Nearly losing him like that. And then when he was conscious again, to have to sit there while the old bugger kept his gob shut about who shot him. His first concern was for Katie and Nick, and Nick’s family. We were instructed to issue apologies to them all. Well, I can understand it. We had to strong-arm Declan into attending the wedding in the first place. But whatever one might make of that death notice, who would have believed they — whoever they are — would try to hit him in such a public gathering? Poor Patrick is devastated that he’d begun laughing the whole thing off. But who can blame him really?” He looked at me. “Monty, I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry about?”
“Bringing you and Maura and the children into this. I —”
“Brennan. You didn’t know. As you said yourself, nobody could have foreseen what happened in that gym.”
“The old fellow foresaw the possibility, though, didn’t he? He wanted to forgo the wedding and when he couldn’t do that, he tried to stay as far away from the rest of us as he could.”
“But shooting someone at a public event with three hundred witnesses? Nobody’s at fault but the gunman. And whatever he represents.”
“What did you do for excitement before you met me, Collins?”
“It’s been an eventful year.”
“And we still have our mission to complete.”
“But the police are on it now. Surely they are better placed than a couple of amateur gumshoes to —”
“They’ll try to solve the crime that was committed last night. I don’t expect them to get to the root of it all. Whatever it is.”
“And that job falls to us.”
“What did we come to New York for? To drink and get laid?”
I decided it might be wise not to answer that directly. “It’s a reasonable alternative to playing detective alongside the mighty NYPD.”
“They’re not going to get all the answers. Declan will tell them only what he has to tell them, so he won’t be seen as obstructing their investigation into the attempt on his life. Beyond that, he’ll maintain the silence of the dead. Believe me. I know the man. And this won’t end until we get to the bottom of it. So, back to that obit.”
“I take it you’ve given the police a copy of the obituary.” Silence. “Well?”
“No.”
“And why is that?”
“Until we suss out what it means, and how it might implicate my father, I’m not giving them so much as a peep at it.”
“I see. Did you come up with any new insights sitting in this place all night?”
He shook his head. “My brain isn’t working. I said Mass for the family in the chapel here and I even screwed up the Pater Noster. I still can’t decipher the part about Cathal — or Declan — sharing the song and drink. And I have no idea who the brother and the stepson are, Benedict and Stephen. If we just go by the names we get Benedict, which means ‘Blessed.’ Saint Benedict was the founder of western monasticism. My father was predeceased by a monk? And Saint Stephen. The first Christian martyr. Somehow I suspect that line of thinking will get us nowhere.”
“Martyred how?”
“Stoned to death.”
“Sounds unlikely in this day and age. At least in the western world.”
“I should hope so.”
“Unless it was a drug-related death.” He looked up sharply. “You know, died stoned. An overdose.”
“We just don’t know,” he said helplessly.
“As for Benedict, maybe you’re too much the Mick here, Brennan.”
“How’s that?”
“Think American, not Irish Catholic. What do Americans think of when they hear the name Benedict?”
“Benedict Arnold. The traitor.”
“Right. Could Declan have been predeceased by a traitor of some sort? And the obit calls Benedict a brother.”
Burke avoided my eyes. He got up and walked over to a nearby water fountain. Took a long drink. When he sat down again he didn’t speak.
Who were Benedict and Stephen? The traitor and the martyr. “Do you have the clipping?” He pulled out his wallet, produced the paper and handed it to me. I skimmed it again. One word in particular struck me as being central to the entire indictment. “Brennan, what significance do you attach to the word ‘predeceased’?”
He rested his head in his left hand and massaged his temples. “When we read it, Pat and I both had the impression that this person was accusing our father of murder. Or at least implying that he was responsible for the deaths of these two people. We didn’t want to believe it. But now?” He lapsed into a brooding silence.
“Let’s look at it that way then. Somebody tried to kill your father over this — whatever this is — so we have to face the fact that whatever happened was something very serious. We don’t know who Benedict or Stephen were, so we’ll go at it from another direction. Why do people kill?” Silence. “Very well. Why would someone suppose your father had killed —”
“Perhaps that should be: why would someone claim he had committed murder?”
“Whatever the case, let’s get down to the basics of murder. What are the classic motivations?” I began to enumerate them. “Money.”
“Nobody would ever think my father would kill for money. Money is not a motivating factor in his life.”
“I agree he doesn’t seem the type to be moved by greed. At least he doesn’t seem that way to us. But we don’t know how he might be perceived by someone else. Say this happened during the early years here in New York; wouldn’t money have been a problem? Declan left Ireland under cover of darkness, on the lam from something, the way I heard it. So here he was, newly arrived in the United States with a wife and a young family to support.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s likely that he knifed somebody for his wallet, or robbed a bank.”
“No, but those aren’t the only possibilities. Where did the money come from when your family got off the boat in 1950, to pay for a place to live, and all the other necessities of life? What did Sandra say the other night?”
“‘Fuck off, Brennan’?”
“She didn’t say that. She was telling us about her early encounters with your dad. Back in the fifties. She witnessed some kind of confrontation between your father and another guy. Didn’t she say something about a big stack of dollars? What was it?”
“It was something like that.”
“How did Declan come up with the money for a house in Sunny-side? After just getting off the boat from Ireland. What was going on back then?”
“I don’t know,” he answered in a quiet voice.
“We won’t cross money off our list just yet. Other common motivations. Lust.”
“Lust,” he repeated.
“Right. Lust, love, jealousy. Right up there at the top of the list of reasons people do away with each other.”
“It would help if we knew who is supposed to have been killed, I’m thinking.”
“It would help enormously. Do you see your father as someone who would commit a crime of passion?”
“I don’t see him that way. But I wouldn’t; I’m his son. I was a child if we’re talking ancient history here.”
“The scene at the Met, the woman who accused your father of destroying her family. You say nobody ever told you what that was all about?”
“No.”
“And that was when? In 1956?”
“Right.”
“Well, I think we’d better proceed on the assumption that it’s connected somehow.”
“Bren.” We looked up to see Patrick coming towards us.
“What did he want you for?”
Patrick waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t even ask.”
“I’m asking.”
“He wanted to consult me for my arcane medical knowledge. That is, do I know if he can call long distance from the hospital phone without all the nosy old gossips on the switchboard listen
ing to his every word. I broke the news to him that everyone in the whole communications system in this hospital has been waiting for the day Declan Burke would be admitted with gunshot wounds so they could hang on his every word. He told me to feck off so I was able to make a graceful exit. In front of a very attractive cardio resident who was just coming in the door.”
“So, who does he want to call?”
“I said he told me to feck off, not to ring directory assistance. But never mind that. Are you two solving the case here? Let’s move over to the other side, where there are three seats.”
“Paddy, you’ve been here all night. Go home and sleep.”
“You were here all night too. You need a break.”
“I’m on holiday, Patrick. I planned to be up all night, every night. And I have been. I can sleep any time. Off with you. Oh, and give Brigid a call and tell her I thought of something she can do to help.”
“What’s that?”
“Get her to sit down with the telephone directories and go through all the Murphys — every one of them — to see if she can come up with a Cathal.”
Patrick agreed and headed out. Brennan and I resumed our deliberations.
“I suppose it’s pointless,” I began, “to ask if you know of any other woman in his life.”
“I can’t imagine him with another woman. But then, I couldn’t have imagined any of this.”
“Moving on to other possible motives and circumstances. Self-defence.”
“A possibility,” Brennan conceded.
“Perhaps someone he had a long history with.”
“Or a luckless stranger who jumped him outside a bar.”
“Let’s hope not. How would we ever trace something like that? But it’s unlikely. An incident like that would not have stayed alive in someone’s mind all these years, to the point where the person would craft this maddening little death notice and ignite the whole thing again.” I took my turn at the water fountain. “How about revenge?”
“We certainly can’t discount that. But who knows? We’re not up on the history. This is so frustrating.”
“Blackmail,” I ventured.
“He’d never pay it. Never. Can you picture yourself sidling up to Declan Burke in a dark quiet spot and trying to wheedle money out of him with the threat to go public about some —”
“There you go then. Attempted blackmail. Exit one ill-starred blackmailer.”
“We’re talking through our hats here, Monty. We don’t have anything to go on.”
We had to get a picture of the kind of man Declan Burke was, the life he was living when he first arrived in New York, the people he knew. And why had he come here in the first place? What precipitated his sudden flight from the land of his birth? I put another motive on the table: “Patriotism. Love of country, killing the enemy. Does that strike a chord on the harp for you?”
“He’s always refused to discuss that part of his life.”
We were about to learn that, whether he discussed it or not, that part of his life was a matter of great interest to a number of people on both sides of the Atlantic.
Chapter 4
It’s barely a year since I wandered away
With the local battalion of the bold IRA
For I’d read of our heroes and I wanted the same,
To play up my part in the Patriot Game.
— Dominic Behan, “The Patriot Game”
March 9, 1991
Tom and Normie wanted to get on with seeing New York. The lighter, less lethal side. When I returned to Manhattan we embarked on a day of sightseeing: the Empire State Building, Central Park, Strawberry Fields. By mid-afternoon Maura and Normie were keen to shop. Tom gave me the thumbs-up; it was time for the boys to hit the Village and see a number of places associated with Bob Dylan, starting with the White Horse Tavern and the Café Wha? All this helped keep the kids’ minds off the harrowing event they had witnessed. We had dinner, then turned in early to catch up on our sleep.
The next morning, we were headed for the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge in Terry Burke’s car, with Brennan at the wheel. His face was pale and he was wearing sunglasses. An experienced New York driver, he ignored the traffic mayhem around him. Maura, though, had not yet adjusted. “I can’t believe these people. The minute — the very microsecond — the light turns green, they’re leaning on their horns. ‘Beeeeeep. Get movin’ — what are ya waitin’ for, Christmas?’ This starts at five in the morning and goes on, well, till five the next morning. Constant noise. It’s a wonder they don’t all die of a heart attack at forty.”
“Ay, ya gotta chill out, babe,” he responded in a New York accent that was not his own.
Maura and the kids were going to see the American Museum of the Moving Image, in Astoria. Brennan and I were on a mission to JFK International Airport, to pick up a mysterious stranger. We dropped the family off with a promise to collect them on our return from the airport. I now asked the obvious question: “Who’s this guy we’re picking up?”
“Dec won’t even tell me his name. Or why he’s here. Just said they ‘served’ together in the old days. Didn’t say which Army had the benefit of their service, but I think we can safely assume it was the IRA. I got the impression this man was his commanding officer. Try to imagine the class of fellow who would be barking orders at my father.”
“My imagination fails me. How’s Declan doing now?”
“Still weak, but won’t let on. Demanding to be released. My mother was laying down the law to him when I left.”
We got to the airport, parked the car and headed for Terminal Four.
“How are we going to recognize this guy?”
“Declan said the man would know me. Must have given him a description.”
We stood waiting for the passengers to make their way through the system. Brennan took his sunglasses off and put them in his pocket. I was shocked at how weary he looked. The area under his dark eyes appeared bruised, in contrast to the pallor of his cheeks. “When’s the last time you had a night’s sleep?”
“Not within recent memory. I’d like to sneak off to the hotel. Pass out for a day or two, I’m thinking.”
“You should. Get this guy settled and disappear. You look like hell.”
“Here they come.” First off the Aer Lingus flight were a few impatient business people, who appeared to be Americans, looking at their watches and pressing their lips together. Then came a flock of priests and nuns, gawking around them with excitement. “Can’t you see Mike O’Flaherty herding that crowd around?” I agreed. Father O’Flaherty, Brennan’s pastor in Halifax, lived for the opportunity to squire gaggles of Canadian tourists around Ireland. A group of Irish clerics would be the summum bonum of his vocation as a tour guide. The priests were of all ages, the sisters mainly middle-aged and older. They were met by two co-religionists who shepherded them from the terminal. Then a few families and tourists straggled from the plane. Our attention was caught by a big pugnacious-looking man of indeterminate age, dressed in a tight suit in an unbecoming colour somewhere between forest green and black. He was either bald or had shaved his head, and his nose appeared to have been broken at some point in his life. Had Declan met his match in this hard-ass? He looked around with hostility, and Brennan stepped forward.
“Would your name be Burke, by any chance?” A quiet, clipped voice came at us from the side. We both turned to face a man who stood about five foot eight inches high, with a wiry build, thinning grey hair and snapping dark brown eyes. The man was in his robust seventies, mid to late, and was attired in black clerical garb with a Roman collar. He was looking at Brennan. “I’m Father Killeen. Now, which one are you?”
“Brennan. I’m happy to meet you, Father. This is Mr. Collins. Montague Collins, a good friend of mine.”
“Collins, is it?” He searched my face. “Miceál O Coileáin.”
Brennan just shook his head: Don’t waste your breath; Monty doesn’t get it.
“Hello. Father.”
“No. Did we meet?”
“Forty-two years ago.”
“Oh?”
“In 1949 at the Bodenstown March.”
“You met Brennan at some kind of parade when he was a child?”
The old man swivelled in his seat. “Mr. Collins. It was not ‘some kind of parade.’ This is the Bodenstown March we’re speaking of here.” He waited. In vain. “The annual march to the grave of Wolfe Tone.”
“Leader of the 1798 rebellion,” I said.
He looked gratified. “That’s right. The founder of Irish Republicanism. In the old days, the national Army arrived first at the grave, paid its respects, followed by Fianna Fail. Then, when they’d cleared off, our crowd arrived and slagged everything the first two groups had done! If you paid attention to who was there and what was said, you’d have a leg up on the coming year’s Republican policy. Like watching who’s lined up in the Kremlin on May Day.”
He lapsed into a contented silence for awhile, then: “That emphasis on your name, Mr. Collins, was not meant as a slur, and you have my apologies. Although I obviously took a different side in things when I became active, in my heart of hearts I believe we owed Michael Collins more than we could ever repay. He thought he was doing the right thing by signing the Treaty in ’21. Thought it was the best he could get at the time, and it probably was. And of course the year that Mr. Burke here was playing guns at Bodenstown, that being 1949, the Republic was a fait accompli.”
We drove on without conversation for a few minutes, then Brennan began to recite: “Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare —”