Obit

by Anne Emery

  “I’m sure she was,” I said, as I put the car in gear.

  We could hear the bell pealing in the Norman tower before we were in sight of Saint Kieran’s. I found a parking spot and we speed-walked to the church. The priest was at the back of the nave setting out booklets with the Latin responses for the congregation. The place was half filled; it struck me as a good crowd for a noontime Mass. Brennan finished with his booklets and turned around. His Roman collar peeked out above his vestments, and he was wearing a biretta on his head. He saw Leo, and I followed his glance. The old priest was making the sign of the cross at the font of holy water. I caught his expression when his eyes focused and he saw Brennan. He stared at him, astonished. Brennan smiled and moved towards the older man with his arms held out. They embraced.

  Father Killeen finally found his voice: “Why didn’t you tell me, Brennan?”

  “You never asked.” Leo was shaking his head, and Brennan went on: “That routine with me and the children and, em, Maura, wasn’t planned, Leo. You misunderstood, and nobody corrected you. But the joke wasn’t on you.”

  “No,” Killeen answered, regarding Brennan with a shrewd look, “it was on you, wasn’t it?”

  A shadow seemed to pass over Burke’s face before he laughed and said: “Maybe so.”

  “All right, avic, let’s hear how good your Latin is.”

  “Better still — you celebrate; I’ll be your altar boy.” The old fellow’s face lit up and they walked together ad altare Dei. Five minutes later the two priests emerged — one big, dark and deceptively hard-looking, the other slight, grey-haired and deceptively mild — and sang the ancient Tridentine Mass in Latin.

  When it was over my two companions joined me on the steps of the church; their sense of peace and well-being was palpable. Since meeting Brennan, I had spent a lot of time wondering how he could give up so much in order to be a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. But I knew the answer lay somewhere beyond my powers of comprehension. Whatever it was, it was with him now. I was reluctant to break the spell. But mundane matters intruded anyway.

  “Where did you park, Monty? I came by cab so I’ll go back with you and Leo.”

  “Just around the block.”

  “So this is where it happened,” Father Killeen remarked, directing his gaze to the school. We all stopped and looked over.

  “We have some news, Leo,” Brennan began. “The police found the gun, and some other evidence they won’t reveal.”

  “Did they now. Are they any closer to an arrest?”

  “They think the gun can be traced to Ireland.”

  Leo stared at Brennan. “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s not just the weapon, it’s where they found it. The gunman turfed it at JFK. Well, took a bit of time to conceal it in some rubble, according to the police. So it looks as if —”

  “What kind of a gun was it?” Leo interrupted.

  “Something old. Do you remember, Monty?”

  “A Lee Enfield.”

  “In that case, with any luck they’ll trace it to England!”

  “They seemed quite sure there was an Irish connection. Perhaps whatever other evidence they found —”

  “No,” the old fellow interrupted again, “this was not an Irish hit. Not IRA anyway.”

  “You’re sounding quite sure of yourself there, Leo.”

  “I am. Look elsewhere.”

  We were all still gazing at the school, so it seemed natural that one of us would say: “Let’s go see where it happened.” It was Leo.

  The school gym was open and unoccupied, and we went inside. We stood where Declan had been standing when the shots were fired. “They came from over there.” Brennan pointed to the row of plywood cabinets along the wall.

  “Is that right? I would have expected the gunman up there.” Killeen indicated the long glassed-in area on the second floor, where people could observe what was happening in the gym. “But of course, much harder to escape from the upper floor.”

  We walked over to the cabinets. The door of the last one in the row, which had been splintered during the attack, had been repaired.

  “He was in here,” I explained to Leo. The cabinet had a shiny new padlock. “The guy must have got the original lock off in order to get in there. But then he couldn’t have replaced it or put one of his own on from the inside, and the security people surely would have noticed if there was one lock missing or open. So —”

  I walked around; the cabinets were about eighteen inches out from the gymnasium wall. I wondered why they were not flush with the wall but then I saw an electrical panel behind the cabinets. The panel would have to remain accessible. Obviously a makeshift solution to a storage problem. It then occurred to me to wonder why the cabinet hadn’t moved when I leaned against it during the wedding reception, during my doomed effort to seduce my wife. That’s when it hit me.

  “The gunman was in there while Maura and I were — I was leaning against it and I had her —” I realized I had my hands out as if I were grasping her hips against mine. Leo and Brennan were looking at me with great interest.

  “Go on,” Leo encouraged, with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.

  “She went off in a huff,” I finished.

  “Story of your life,” Brennan remarked.

  “The point I’m trying to make is that this flimsy cabinet didn’t move with my weight against it, which means the shooter was in there at the time.”

  “Yes, he would have taken up his position before the reception got underway, and waited anxiously for his target to appear,” Leo said. “He may have removed the back panel of this cabinet to get in. Well, he must have, if he didn’t come bursting out the front door of it after the shooting.”

  “He didn’t. We didn’t catch even a glimpse of him,” Brennan replied. “How he got in and out would all be in the police reports but we haven’t been privy to them.”

  “Have you asked to see them?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “I suppose because we’ve been concentrating on motive, not method.”

  “And have you been sharing your thoughts with the investigators?”

  “No.”

  “So. A Lee Enfield,” Leo stated, in a businesslike tone. “If it’s the No. 4 MkI, I’ve fired that weapon myself. In training.” Sure. “The barrel is this long —” he held his hands about two feet apart “— and this cabinet is considerably less than three feet in depth. So I would have — the gunman would likely have positioned himself like this.” The priest got into a firing posture, holding an imaginary rifle and peering intently through an imaginary gun sight. A shiver ran through me as I watched him. “Everything at an angle. He must have poked a spy hole in the door here. Not an ideal position at all. No room to manoeuvre. But he didn’t want to chance the second floor so this is what he was stuck with. He must have been very patient. And very determined. Now he may have used the No. 5 with the shorter barrel. I heard that model has quite a kick so his shot may have been off . . . Where did the bullets go? Declan is what? Five foot ten or so? And he was hit in the chest. What was the angle of fire, do you know? I mean, did the round enter his body on an upward trajectory, downward, or what?”

  “I don’t know, Leo. But the police have all that information.”

  “I do think the fellow would have to be standing. Very uncomfortable if he was a tall man. Not a lot of room to crouch here without his arse sticking out or pushing the loose panel out of the back of the cabinet. Where was the scrap of clothing found?” Brennan and I looked at each other and shrugged. Leo continued: “It’s a small space behind here but I don’t see anything that would have impeded his movement, or caught his clothing. Do you? Nothing metal sticking out. And I would assume the inside of the cabinet is just plywood. What was the man’s escape route?”

  “Through the window in the corridor right behind him,” I answered. “There’s nothing but bushes on this side of the building. Perfect scree
n. The police say he had prepared things well in advance. Came one night and took out the window. Put it in with just a bit of putty. He came in that way the day of the shooting, replaced the window somehow from inside — I don’t know how, I’m no carpenter — and went out the same way. Left the window lying on the ground, jumped in his car and was gone before the security guards made it to this side of the school.”

  “So no jagged glass to snag him on his way out. Is it an actual piece of cloth we’re talking about, or a few threads? Or microscopic fibres the technicians were able to pick up?”

  “Terry didn’t say. And we didn’t ask. We will now. Aren’t we due at lunch, Brennan?”

  “Ah. We’d better be off.”

  †

  Maura and Sheila greeted us at the front door. I could smell lamb. Irish stew?

  “This fellow has left you for the Lord above, a cushla machree,” Killeen said to Maura, jerking his thumb towards Brennan. She snickered and responded that the Lord had his hands full.

  “You seem to be taking it well.”

  “Easy come, easy go.”

  “So it’s young Montague you have to patch things up with.” Another snicker from my wife, this one much more cynical than the last. “Of course, when I picture your children, especially Tommy, I can see he’s a ringer for his da. Declan, Dia duit.” Leo lowered his voice. “In spite of what the police have found, I don’t think for one minute —”

  “Ah, leave it alone, Leo. Enjoy your last meal here, without getting into that. Come inside.”

  People were packed in around the mahogany dining room table; an extension must have been added, and chairs brought in from other rooms. Normie was sitting with Christine; somewhere they had come up with identical pink hair bands. Patrick and his daughter, Deirdre, were helping Teresa set out the plates. Terry and Brigid were sharing a laugh; she raised a glass and grinned when she saw me come in. A bottle of wine had already been consumed, and a couple more were set to go. All in all, a relaxing, convivial setting. There were three places waiting for those of us arriving fresh from the sacraments and the scene of the crime. I looked forward to hearing more tales from Leo, his lighter side, I hoped. He opened with the traditional blessing, and everyone raised a wine glass to his presence and his safe journey home.

  “I’ll be anticipating a visit from each and every one of you, now that we’ve become reacquainted. Don’t all come at once; I don’t have a table this big. Which puts me in mind of a story. You’re not going to like it, Declan, but I’ll be telling it anyway. It was meal hour in the Joy and the screws —”

  “A party? For me? How thoughtful!” The voice was sarcastic and vaguely familiar.

  “Francis! Darling! We’ll find you a chair. Terry, bring one up from the family room. Here, Francis, let me fill a plate for you, dear.” Teresa got up, kissed her son and headed for the kitchen.

  “Leo,” Declan said, “this is my son Francis. Fran, meet Father Leo Killeen.”

  Leo stood to shake hands with the new arrival, who took his hand distractedly and said: “Two of them in the same room? Well, they say the Irish are a priest-ridden race.”

  “They also say we’re a charming race,” retorted Leo. “Shows you how misleading popular notions can be.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’d better be,” Declan admonished his son with barely controlled fury. “Here’s your seat. Sit on it and try to be civil, why don’t you.”

  “Yes, Your Graciousness. If only I had your pleasant, easygoing manner, hell, I’d be head salesman at the —”

  “Oh, feck off, Frankie,” Brigid told him. She and Francis had the same colouring, dark hair and hazel eyes with a prominent black ring around the iris. “Now, where were we? You were saying, Leo?”

  Maura chimed in: “Bridey, I haven’t been introduced to your brother.”

  “Don’t bother, Maura. He’ll leave in a snit halfway through the meal. Now, Leo —”

  Patrick tried to pour soothing oil on the roiling waters. “What have you been up to, Fran?”

  “I’ve been working my arse off, Patrick. All for nothing, as it turned out.”

  “You were working?” Terry asked without bothering to mask his surprise.

  “What do you think I’ve been living on, scraps from the bin outside?”

  “Here’s a wee scrap for you,” Teresa announced, putting a heaping plate of stew and boxty in front of him. “Eat up, darling.”

  “Thanks, Ma.” To Terry, he said: “I was working at a printing company, and doing a better job than a lot of the old stiffs who have been on the payroll since Jesus was a Jew. But the boss was a Class A jerkoff and I told him to stuff it.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Terry said. “Every time this guy lands a job, the boss is a jerk. The résumé of Francis Burke: I quit, boss was an arsehole; I quit, boss was an arsehole. Does he coincidentally find every shithead of a supervisor in North America? Or could the common factor be — could it possibly be Fran himself?”

  “Terry, you’re not helping matters here. Why don’t we listen to what Francis has to tell us?”

  “Oh, Pat, you’re such a sweetheart, but don’t waste it on that little gobshite,” Brigid snapped.

  “Paddy and a whole team of psychiatrists couldn’t help this clown,” Terry added.

  “I need a shrink? I thought all I needed was the warmth and love of my dear, dear family.”

  “I’m of a mind to get up and belt you around the head, you little glamaire,” his father threatened. “It’s bad enough the family has to listen to your whinging and complaining, but to act like this in front of our guests — you’re insufferable.”

  “Why don’t you get up and clock me, Dec? That was your solution in the past. His Holiness over there felt the rap of your knuckles a good many times and look how he turned out.” Brennan fastened his black eyes on his brother as if he were a serpent climbing up from the depths of hell.

  “Brennan needed correction a few times, certainly. He was a boozing, drug-taking little skirt-chaser, but he’s all right now. As you can see.”

  “I doubt it. He’s probably still at it. I can’t see him, of all people, living up to a vow of celibacy. In fact —”

  “I’m sure he does the best he can,” Declan answered shortly. “More than I can say for you.”

  “Declan, don’t mind the young boicín,” Leo said. “Isn’t it likely he’s been given bata agus bóthar, and is a little cantalach as a natural result?”

  “No, he’s always like this.”

  “Do you think I’m too thick to understand what you’re saying? No, I wasn’t fired. I’ve never been fired from a job in my life. As hard as it is for some in this room to believe.”

  “You’re an Irish speaker then?” asked Father Killeen.

  “I know a bit of the old tongue, yes.”

  “And where did you pick it up?”

  “I spent some time over there.”

  “Oh? When was this?” Brennan asked. “First I heard of it.”

  “It’s news to me as well,” Declan said.

  “Sure and isn’t there a great lot of information we’ve never been given about your own time over there, Da? It might surprise you, Father Killeen, to hear that Declan wasn’t always the mild, gentle paterfamilias you see before you today, smiling fondly at his adoring children. He had a darker side. But then again maybe you’re his confessor, and know a bit about the old sinner after all.”

  Father Killeen regarded Francis with his sharp brown eyes and then said: “Bhíomar sna hÓglaigh le chéile, a mhic.” Which was translated for me later as: “We were Volunteers together, my boy.”

  Francis’s face lost its sullenness, and he looked at the priest in astonishment. “You and the old man in the IRA together, and you a priest?” The old man gave a curt nod, and returned to his dinner.

  “When were you in Ireland, Francis?” Brennan asked.

  “A while back.”

  “Doing what?”

  Te
rry answered the question in a stage accent: “Liftin’ a dacent pint and shaggin’ the local colleens, if it’s any of your business, you fookin’ eejits.”

  But Francis merely said: “Touring around, doing a bit of studying, odd jobs.” He shrugged.

  Everyone was suddenly hungry, and it looked as if peace would reign. Several conversations started up, and I sent up a silent prayer of thanks that Maura had uncharacteristically stayed out of the fray. My daughter had looked on in fascinated silence. Our own family strife must have looked dull and benign in comparison.

  But Francis couldn’t leave well enough alone. “So. Bridey. How’s Larry Lunch Bucket?”

  “Steadily employed, is how he is,” Brigid snapped.

  “Well, that’s all that counts, isn’t it? Brings home a paycheque to keep all those childer in shoes. Why’d you leave him home — again? More fun without him, right?”

  “What?” Brigid stared at him. “I notice you can’t keep your eyes off this guy.” Francis pointed his fork in my direction.

  “What on earth brought that on, Francis?” Patrick asked with unfeigned concern.

  But Bridey was well able to speak for herself. “Monty knows I’ve been warm for his form since I first laid eyes on him. He also knows, tragically, that I’m spoken for.”

  “Larry. That plodder. ‘What’s new on the construction site today dear? Nothin’, Bridey, still waitin’ for the drywall. Same ole, same ole. Is my bologna sandwich ready yet?’ If you’d held off, finished college and played your cards right, you could have had someone like this.” Now it was his knife that pointed me out.

  Brennan had had enough. “Why the hell don’t you grow up, you little garlach? We’ve all gone out of our way to make allowances for you, Christ only knows why, and every time you show up, we have to endure your whinging and your tiresome little rants. So far today you’ve insulted our father, our guest Leo, your sister, her husband, me as usual — and for no fucking reason at all. Well, that’s over. This is the last time we’re going to put up with this shite from you.”