Sins of the Fathers

by A. J. McCarthy

  When the last person left the pub, Charlie gratefully locked the door.

  ‘Okay, what the hell’s up with you? You turned into a mad woman,’ Simm said.

  ‘For once, I agree with him,’ Frank added.

  ‘I know where it is.’

  ‘The journal?’ Simm asked. ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘I remembered something from years ago. I recall walking in on Jim and surprising him.’

  She went behind the bar and started removing bottles from one section of the bar. The wall behind the bar gave the appearance of being one huge mirror with shelves in front of it, holding the various liquor bottles, but it was literally the opposite. It was one huge set of shelves with small mirrors inset into each section. The section that interested her was about twelve inches in width and sixteen inches in height. When all the bottles were out of the way, she ran her hands over the mirror, pushing in various places. Finally, she heard a little popping noise and the mirror swung open, revealing a small cupboard.

  Inside, was a leather journal.

  Chapter 66:

  ‘You’re a genius,’ Frank said.

  ‘I feel stupid, very stupid. I can’t believe I forgot about it. Jim had such a guilty look when I walked in, and he tried to brush it off as nothing. His ploy worked; I didn’t think of it again until tonight.’

  Charlie flipped through the journal, revealing pages and pages of Jim’s neat precise writing, as Frank and Simm looked over her shoulder. She shut the book and hugged it to her chest.

  ‘It’s late. Frank, you need to get home. I’ll take this back to the apartment with us, and I’ll look at it tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You’ll tell me about it, won’t you?’ Frank asked.

  Charlie smiled. He looked like a kid who’d been denied a piece of candy.

  ‘Of course, I will. We’re in this together. But, we all need our rest. Now that we’ve found it, it’ll keep.’

  They closed the pub and went their separate ways.

  ‘You won’t wait until tomorrow morning,’ Simm commented when they were in the car.

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Okay, maybe I’ll have a peek tonight, but there’s way too much stuff in here to absorb all in one night. And I’m tired. I still haven’t gotten over the jet lag.’

  ‘Why did you not want Frank to see it?’

  ‘I didn’t not want him to see it. It’s late, and I didn’t want to make him stay.’

  ‘It seemed to be more than that,’ Simm said.

  ‘It wasn’t. It’s private. I need to look at it on my own.’

  When they were in Simm’s apartment, Charlie dragged herself through the motions of getting ready for bed, her eyes burning. When she settled underneath the covers, she heard Simm in the bathroom. Picking up the precious journal from the bedside table, she opened it to the first page, deciding to read only that page.

  Hours later, Simm grumbled, ‘For God’s sake, go to sleep. You keep muttering.’

  ‘I will, right after this page.’

  Simm lifted himself on to one elbow and looked across her at the clock.

  ‘Jesus, it’s five o’clock. The birds are singing outside. Don’t you believe in sleep?’

  ‘Shh. Quit complaining, and go back to sleep. I’ll be quiet.’

  Simm sat up in the bed and propped himself on the pillows, the sheet slipping to his waist.

  ‘Okay, give. What’s in it?’

  ‘It’s a diary. It starts in 1980, a few years after he bought the bar, when he started doing business with the West End Gang.’

  ‘Really?’ She had his attention.

  ‘It’s fascinating. I’m starting to understand his thinking behind the whole thing. I don’t agree with it or condone it, but I can understand it.’

  ‘What drove him?’

  She set the book on her knee and leaned her head back against the headboard.

  ‘When I saw Sylvie the other day, I wondered if she had been the motivation. She was a high-maintenance woman. I was right. Jim needed the extra money to keep her happy, so he helped out the Gang by laundering their money. And it was him that paid the price when he went to jail.’

  ‘You do the crime you do the time. It was his choice.’

  ‘I know, but still…I feel bad for him. He was like a father to me.’

  ‘I get it. But what about the babies?’

  ‘I haven’t gotten to that part yet.’

  ‘You’re not curious enough to skip ahead?’

  ‘I need to understand how he got to that point.’

  Simm yawned, and lowered himself under the covers again.

  ‘You’re a strange one, Charlie.’

  Chapter 67:

  When Simm woke, Charlie was asleep with the journal open on her stomach, her arms spread out by her side, and the bedside light still lit. It was nine o’clock, and he had no idea how much sleep she had managed to get. He gently picked up the book, and took it with him to the kitchen. Sipping his coffee, he flipped through the pages, scanning most of the first section. He wasn’t as methodical as Charlie when it came to this sort of thing. He wanted to skip ahead to the interesting part.

  About mid-way through the journal, the style of writing changed from prose to note form. There were dates, names, and towns listed. In some cases, there were four or five names, in others three and some had just two with a question mark. Simm flipped rapidly through the pages. There had to be hundreds of entries.

  He went back and looked at them one by one. It didn’t take long to figure out the system. Jim had used acronyms like DOB, DOA, BP, BM, and AP. When there were five names it included the name of the child along with the birth parents and the adoptive parents. Often, only the birth mother’s name was listed, with no father. Sometimes, the child’s name would be written, and sometimes it was unknown. Dates would include date of birth, and date of adoption. Sometimes, just the date of adoption was known.

  Simm saw Jim had tried his best to document the movement of children, but often the information wasn’t available to him. Why had he done this? Had he intended to share it with the children at some point? If so, why hadn’t he told Charlie, the one who was presumably closest to him?

  Now that Simm was familiar with the system, he scanned for familiar names like Butler and Sullivan.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Simm dropped the book and looked up as Charlie hurried to his side. She snatched the journal away from him and looked at the open pages.

  ‘You’re reading ahead. I told you I didn’t want to do that.’

  ‘You can do whatever you want. I’m just trying to get to the important stuff.’

  ‘It’s all important.’

  ‘No, it’s all pertinent. What’s most urgent, right now, is finding out about your past, what Sullivan’s connection is, and who’s sending you those letters.’

  She hugged the journal to her chest.

  ‘I know, it’s just…’

  ‘You want to know, but you’re afraid to know.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Then why don’t you let me find it for you. I’ve figured out his system.’

  ‘How many are there?’

  ‘A lot. Hundreds, probably.’

  ‘Hundreds? How can you smuggle hundreds of children from one country to another?’

  ‘I guess, at that time, the security procedures were different. You didn’t need a passport to travel by air between countries. The one trip your father made to Ireland w
as presumably to bring you back with him. Jim would’ve taken care of the fake identification, birth certificate, and whatnot.’

  ‘It makes sense, but you’d think someone would get suspicious after a while.’

  ‘Looking at the dates, this was done over a period of several years. With the number of travellers between the countries, no one would notice. It’s not as if they booked an airplane and put a hundred kids on it.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Charlie stared out the window, still clutching the journal like a life raft. ‘How old was I?’ she asked.

  ‘About a month old.’

  ‘Oh God. Was I…do you think…I was stolen?’

  ‘It doesn’t say. In your case, as in many others, the birth parents aren’t precisely mentioned.’

  ‘A month old. I was so young.’

  ‘Yes, you were raised by your parents almost from the beginning.’

  ‘I know they were my parents, but I can’t help thinking about where I came from. Remember the letter I got talking about nature versus nurture? That’s what I’m worried about now.’

  ‘In other words, you’re worried you may be Aidan Connelly’s daughter.’

  ‘Yes, or someone equally repugnant.’

  ‘And I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter. At least it doesn’t matter from the point of view of how you were raised and who you are. It may matter for the case.’

  ‘You think my parentage is the link to the letter-writer?’

  ‘It may be.’

  ‘What do you mean by ‘not precisely mentioned’?’

  ‘Your birth parents? There were no specific names, just initials.’

  ‘What were they?’

  ‘A and T.’

  Chapter 68:

  Charlie kept repeating the letters in her head. A and T. A and T. Could it be Aidan and someone? Of course, it could be any number of people, but her real fear was that it was Aidan. If she was his daughter, did she have his propensity for crime and selfishness? She would think those characteristics would have reared their ugly heads by now, but maybe they would skip a generation and be found in her children. That was a chilling thought.

  How would she find the truth? Jim, for some reason, hadn’t detailed it in his journal. He had to know who they were if he recorded their initials. Had he been trying to protect her from the worst? Or was he protecting the parents from discovery?

  During the entire work day, she was distracted, alternating between being certain she was the spawn of the devil, or she was the product of two teenagers who had the choice to give up their child or be cast out of their family.

  When Simm showed up, she gestured him into her office.

  ‘So? What did you find?’

  ‘Aidan’s wife’s name was Christine.’

  ‘Oh, thank God. Why do you have that look on your face? Isn’t that good news?’

  ‘Aidan and Christine had two children whom they raised to adulthood.’

  ‘They kept them? I thought he had given up his children.’

  ‘Apparently, he was a prolific fellow. He had several mistresses, and he didn’t believe in birth control.’

  Charlie sagged into a chair and dragged her hands over her face.

  ‘What the hell? He didn’t believe in birth control, but he believed in, and performed, abortions?’

  Simm held his hands out and shrugged.

  ‘Go figure.’

  ‘So, he could have had a mistress named Theresa or Tammy,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Perhaps. Or your parents could have been Alice and Tom.’

  ‘Yes, I keep trying to remind myself of that possibility.’

  ‘I made a couple of other interesting discoveries today.’

  ‘What?’ she asked anxiously. She hoped to hear at least a snippet of good news.

  ‘Marty Sullivan got an Irish baby named Matthew.’

  ‘As we suspected, he’s the reason Marty didn’t want us to reveal anything we discovered while in Ireland.’

  ‘Precisely, he doesn’t want anyone to know, especially Matthew.’

  ‘Who are his parents?’

  ‘Nothing was written in the journal.’

  ‘I wonder what’s worse, having nothing or having initials that mean nothing. And I wonder why Sullivan is so desperate to keep it a secret he will pay a small fortune to keep Sylvie in the lap of luxury.’

  ‘I have a theory,’ Simm said. ‘I think he felt he owed something to Jim and helping Sylvie was his way of paying him back. I also think his son may have been one of the stolen babies. That’s something he wouldn’t want revealed. There’s also, of course, a question of pride. He wants his son to think he’s a true Sullivan in every sense of the word.’

  ‘And the message they’re trying to send with the embryo is that they’ll tell Matthew about his roots,’ Charlie said.

  ‘That’s what I think. There’s definitely a strong connection between Connelly and the Mafia. It seems like the criminal underworld was one of the sources of Aidan’s customers. And, through Jim, they made it overseas.’

  ‘My father wasn’t a criminal,’ Charlie insisted.

  ‘No, he was a friend of Jim O’Reilly, and that’s how he made the cut. I suspect a lot of other people who weren’t considered criminals also got babies through Aidan and Jim. Do you remember the connections to which Tom O’Brien referred? Connelly may have had customers like judges and police officers whom he could easily have blackmailed and used their influence to keep him out of jail.’

  ‘Quite possibly, but what do we do with this information? How can it help us?’

  ‘I have a theory. I think the letter-writer is one of these kids, or maybe he’s one of the parents. Maybe something went wrong. Somehow, he knows you’re one of them, and he’s taking it out on you. He must know about Aidan, and the abortions, and the baby-smuggling operation.’

  ‘How would he know he’s one of the kids?’

  ‘His adoptive parents, I would assume.’

  ‘What could go wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s what we must find out, but first I have to narrow down the list. I’ll go through the families and see how many are living here in Montreal. Then I’ll have to see if any of them have a connection to you.’

  ‘That won’t be easy. Like you said, there are hundreds of them.’

  ‘That’s part of my job.’

  Chapter 69:

  Job or no job, it wasn’t fun. Simm didn’t enjoy sitting in front of a computer all day long, but it was the only way to find the information he wanted, and even then, it took him several hours to narrow his search by merely a handful of people.

  He checked his watch and stretched. There were definitely times he missed the more physical job of police work, even though it had its fair share of sitting at a desk, or in a car. Right now, he would head over to the pub and have a beer. He’d continue his work in Charlie’s office. At least it would be a change of scenery.

  It was a quiet Tuesday night at Butler’s, and Charlie, being her ever-curious self, passed some time looking over his shoulder to see how he progressed. It was irritating at times, but it wasn’t boring. Her incessant questions helped to pass the time. He managed to make it through a few other names. So far, he hadn’t found any babies who were still living in the area.

  The end of the evening came at last, and they headed for home a bit earlier than usual.

  It was like déjà vu. The lock was visibly damaged. Simm wordlessly motioned for Charlie to stay behind in the corridor. She didn’t say a word, but the expression on her face
said it all. She knew it had happened again and it frightened her.

  Simm cautiously opened the door. He wanted to swear. Loudly. But, he didn’t know if the guy was still in the apartment, so he didn’t make a sound. On his way in, he snagged a baseball bat that lived in the umbrella stand behind the door. He slung it over his shoulder, ready to go. Making his way from room to room, he stepped over broken furniture, overturned tables, and shredded paper. His laptop and all his electronics were smashed. Minutes later, he retrieved a worried Charlie from the hallway.

  ‘Oh no, Simm. Look at what he did. It’s a mess.’

  ‘He was thorough,’ he agreed, as he dialed 9-1-1.

  Simm’s second call was to Detective Ranfort. Since he had been in charge of the case from the beginning, he needed to know what had happened.

  ‘I guess it’s a good thing I took the journal to the bar with me,’ Simm said.

  ‘You think that’s what he was looking for?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘He would have to know we found it.’

  ‘Unless he always thought so.’

  ‘Right.’

  Simm didn’t have much faith the investigation by the cops would be of any use, but he knew they had to go through the motions. Ranfort arrived and sympathised with their situation, but couldn’t offer any solutions, not that Simm expected any.

  Again, they waited through the work by the police technicians and the questioning of the neighbours. The night watchman was called up and interviewed by Detective Ranfort. As he left the apartment, he smiled at Charlie.

  ‘That’s a cute little dog you have there.’

  ‘Oh…um…thanks. It’s just a temporary arrangement.’

  ‘Hey, there’s no problem. We don’t mind when it’s just small dogs and there aren’t any complaints,’ he said, scratching Harley behind the ears and winking at Charlie. ‘Just keep sneaking him in and we’ll keep looking the other way.’

  It was the wee hours of the morning before they made the apartment more-or-less habitable. Simm took pictures for the insurance company. A lot of his furniture was ready for the trash heap and would have to be replaced. The rest they had salvaged.