The Death of an Irish Lass

by Bartholomew Gill

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I want to make those other two think I do.”

  “Then O’Connor and Fleming did it?”

  “Fleming, I think. He then tried to blame it on either Schwerr or Hanly. They used the two of them to confuse the issue and make us work for the arrest. Fleming’s alibi isn’t airtight. I talked to May Quirk’s uncle. He’s not a person who lives by the clock. O’Connor could have been up there on the cliffs himself. He said he had another pint and then, right about closing, left Griffin’s.

  “Also, I want you to have McAnulty’s crew run a discreet check on Fleming’s farmhouse.”

  “For sawdust and nitrate?”

  “That’s right. Maybe you can get one of them to go there to be treated for something.”

  “Distemper?” McKeon suggested.

  McGarr was too engrossed in the problem to quip back, however. “I wonder if that boot is made here in the States?”

  “You mean you wonder if Fleming or O’Connor might have a boot like that. O’Connor is out, of course. He’s got gunboats, without a doubt. I was giving that some thought myself, since McAnulty’s crew is sure it wasn’t a planted footstep.”

  McGarr said, “And I remember Hanly had small feet for a man carrying his weight.”

  “Is Fleming a tall man?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he didn’t buy them at Callaghan’s. We’ve checked. Hanly’s was the only pair they sold in that size, and they’re the sole distributor here.”

  “Telex me a photo of the print. Have it sent to Assistant Commissioner Sidney Simonds, Headquarters, New York Police Department. Put a rush on it.

  “And then get me the addresses and names of the holders of these phone numbers.” McGarr reached for his wallet, took out the slip of paper, and read to McKeon the numbers he had taken from Sugrue and Nora Cleary.

  “Then place more guards on Phil Dineen’s hospital room or, better, move him to a prison.

  “Tell Hughie to leave off his search of the Quirk house, if he hasn’t quit already, and find out where Fleming has put James Cleary. It’s probably a hospital or rest home or mental institution. That’s if he’s still alive. Place guards on him and go through his effects.”

  “Me or Hughie?” McKeon asked.

  “Hughie, of course.”

  “Oh.” McKeon was dejected. He was always looking for an opportunity to get out of the office. That was a detail assignment that was just up his street. “He’s a devil for work, that little nipper. Sometimes I think he’s after me job. He can have it too, you know. Fecking solitary confinement, it is. I swear.”

  “Not too loudly,” said McGarr. “This is an international wire. And it’ll never happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “All the questions he asks me I can never answer, and I enjoy feeling superior when I talk to you.”

  “You do, do you? Well, speaking of jobs, the Times is calling for yours. Says here—” McGarr could hear the rattle of a newspaper, “—you’re running this place like David Nelligan, just another sort of Gestapo but more pernicious, since the way information has been suppressed about May Quirk’s murder and the Salthill dance hall bombing makes it seem that McGarr is mounting his own pro–I.R.A. coverup. He wants Ireland to think of the consequences of having the police and the I.R.A. in cahoots. He asks what you and Dineen might have been discussing in the back room of the dance hall and why you didn’t arrest Dineen straightaway.”

  “By he you mean Fogarty, of course.”

  “Who else? Sure and you’re becoming his Mephistopheles.”

  “What does the Press say?”

  “Front-page pictures of the Technical Bureau on the scene. ‘Murder Weapon Recovered by Daring Police’ and all that sort of rot.”

  “Inaccurate but nice,” said McGarr.

  “Fogarty wants to know where you are, why you’re keeping yourself incommunicado, why Commissioner Farrell has yet to issue a statement about either case. I don’t think the charge against Hanly will satisfy him, especially when we’ll have to be withdrawing it in a little while. Perhaps it’s time for the truth.” McKeon’s voice had changed. He was serious now.

  “Farrell been calling?”

  “On the hour.”

  “Then you can tell him I’ll be back in Shannon later today with a full explanation of the murder. Just do what I’ve asked of you and things will work out fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Count on it.”

  “What about Fogarty?”

  “Call him and tell him to meet me at Shannon, if he’s that interested. I’ll drag him along. There could be something revealed that is much more important than the laying of a simple murder charge.”

  “More important than maybe a gelignite factory?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, what—”

  “I’ve got to rush. The plane and so forth. See you soon, Bernie.” Before he hung up he waited for McKeon’s curse.

  “God rot you, you—”

  McGarr hung up.

  He then tapped the yoke and had the switchboard operator ring Magowan’s Pub in Lahinch. That was where Hanly had last stopped and Michael Daly drank.

  While she put the call through, McGarr spiked his coffee with a hefty dollop of malt, drank half, and opened the linen leaves of the bread basket on the tray. Croissants, and piping hot! And they were the real crescent-shaped item made with lots of butter and basted with potato flour and boiled water. The croissant had originated in Budapest, or so McGarr had been told by a former Hungarian freedom fighter who now worked for Interpol. It seems that some bakers who were working through the night had heard the Turks, who were besieging the city, tunneling underground. They alerted the guard and the enemy was repulsed. To reward these heroic bakers, the king granted them alone the privilege of making a pastry in the shape of a crescent, the symbol on the Ottoman flag. The year was 1686.

  McGarr spread a little butter and some ruby red jam on a bit of croissant. He bit into it. Hot, buttery dough and tangy preserve. What was it, this taste? McGarr had some more and still couldn’t decide. He dipped his finger into the jam and tasted it without the croissant. Not citrus, nor grape nor berry, nor any fruit he had ever tasted.

  He picked up the phone and asked to be connected to the kitchen. Rose hip jam. No wonder he hadn’t recognized the taste; he had never tasted it before. But he made another mental note: Jack Daniels bourbon and rose hip jam.

  The phone was ringing. McGarr picked it up.

  “Magowan’s, Lahinch, on the line.”

  “Peter McGarr here.”

  “Yes, Inspector,” a voice roared into the phone, “but where are ya? The lady said something about New York calling. You were here only yesterday.”

  McGarr could imagine that every ear in the pub was listening to Magowan’s voice. “It’s a small world.”

  “For some it is. What can I do for you?”

  “Michael Daly. Is he there?”

  “Do you have to ask? Michael!” Magowan shouted.

  When Daly came on, McGarr said, “I want you to think back to Friday night, Michael. Tell me what you saw before and after Hanly sped up the road toward the cliffs.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean, Peter.”

  McGarr imagined that Daly’s stock with the other bar patrons was soaring, talking to the chief inspector transatlantic and on a first-name basis. “Was there a lot of traffic?”

  “Of course. It’s summer, don’t you know.”

  “But locals?”

  “Let me see.” Daly paused. “I was pretty much taken with your man,” meaning Hanly, “but now that you mention it, Dr. Fleming’s Renault was the next car up the road and then a bit behind that Jamie Cleary’s old banger. You’d think the thing was burning turf, the way it was giving off fumes. Nearly choked me, it did.”

  McGarr thanked Daly and hung up.

  He then called Columbia University and requested them to ready copies of Dr. John Flemin
g’s university transcripts, both the one from their university and the one they had received from U.C.D. The I.R.A. might have managed to tamper with the files of the sleepy academic institution in Mount Merrion, but he doubted they had breached the data bank of Columbia University.

  In the Seventeenth Precinct two hours later, Nora Cleary had her lawyer with her. He was a short young man dressed in a three-piece suit. He had done something to the mass of his brown hair, which was shaggy a la mode. It neither moved nor quivered while he strode around an interrogation room saying, “You have no jurisdiction here, Mr. McGarr. My client tells me you broke and entered. You’re an alien. You came to this country as a visitor. That is to say, without going through official police channels first. Since you are here as a private citizen and since it seems you acted alone,” he flashed his eyes at Simonds, “Miss Cleary can have you arrested for any and all of those reasons.” His voice was testy, nasal, and McGarr imagined it might shatter crystal if raised another octave. Simonds had briefed McGarr on the man. His name was Cauley. He was an I.R.A. lawyer in New York who got a lot of work in the Irish community because of his involvement with the cause.

  Nora Cleary said, “He doesn’t have a thing on me, anyhow. It’s just Dublin braggadocio. Lots of lip, that’s all.” She was sitting at a table.

  “Please, Miss Cleary. I’ll do the talking,” said Cauley.

  McGarr was willing to bet Cauley was from Dublin too. He had the look of perpetual surprise—that the world had granted him a fiddle, the tunes from which lined his pockets with gold.

  Simonds was on the other side of the table.

  Another N.Y.P.D. officer was standing near the door.

  “As I see it,” Cauley continued, “we’ve got a test case for the Civil Liberties Union here. Lots of money behind it. Lots of publicity.” He glanced at Simonds, then at McGarr.

  The door opened and Paddy Sugrue stepped into the room. A police officer was behind him.

  But McGarr never took his eyes off Nora Cleary. He removed a Woodbine from his nearly empty last packet and lit it. He said to her, “If you can keep his,” he pointed to Cauley, “lip buttoned, I’ll tell you why you’re in big trouble and will be needing every little squeal he has in him.”

  Cauley went to object, but McGarr stared him down.

  McGarr then placed copies of the passenger lists of two T.W.A. flights to Ireland in front of Nora Cleary. Simonds had had the N.Y.P.D. get them during the night. “You lied to me yesterday. You arrived at Shannon on the twelfth, you left on the thirteenth. May Quirk was murdered on the twelfth.”

  “No reason she should have to tell you anything, much less—”

  Nora Cleary turned to Cauley. “Hush up, now. Let’s hear the man out. Maybe we might learn what all of this is about.”

  McGarr laid another sheet on the table. “This is a ballistics report on your gun, this the report on the one May Quirk had in her hands when we found her. And this is the report on the slug taken from Max Schwerr. Your cohort Dr. Fleming dropped it in a basin and one of the Cassidy kids couldn’t resist saving the souvenir from the wounded I.R.A. gunman. You shot Max Schwerr. There’s only a bit of difference between the barrel markings that those guns make, but it’s enough to charge you with assault.”

  “Perhaps, but in Ireland,” said Cauley. “And you’ll have to extradite for that. Miss Cleary is a U.S. citizen. Your chances aren’t very good. And that’s no mere ploy, that’s fact.”

  “Paddy,” McGarr said to Sugrue, “were you the one who told this woman what May was doing over in Ireland?”

  Sugrue said nothing, just looked at his shoes.

  She said, “Don’t you think I would have known, living with her as I did?”

  That was when Simonds spoke up. “We checked that too, ma’am. Nobody—the doorman, the garage attendant, the people who work in the deli, dry cleaners, beauty parlor, and grocery store in that building—nobody knows who you are. You set yourself up there the moment you got back from Ireland. A good job, I might add. You sure could have fooled me.” He looked at McGarr.

  He said, “And you, Nora, being the CO of the Provisional I.R.A. here in New York” (information McGarr had gotten from the commissioner of police himself at the bar in Queens), “were quite interested in the article May was writing for the Daily News. It was a threat. She was going right for the organization’s jugular, wasn’t she? And when Fleming called saying he believed May Quirk had gotten wise to what was going on in the new basement of his father’s farmhouse, you decided you had to do something.”

  She looked up at him as though she hadn’t understood a word he had said.

  McGarr laid Fleming’s U.C.D. record in front of her. “Gelignite is easy for a man with Fleming’s background in chemistry to produce. He could probably make an atomic bomb, had he the materials.”

  The lawyer was pacing up and down now, wishing—McGarr supposed—he had some information to refute these charges one by one.

  “You decided to go over there and handle it yourself. Fleming wasn’t much at the assassination game, nor was O’Connor, who had only recently come over to your way of thinking and on philosophical grounds—all the hearts-and-sorrows jingoism that you people hand out.

  “Your plane landed at Shannon at six fifty-eight on the twelfth. It hadn’t gotten off the ground until just about midnight on the eleventh, then had gyrocompass problems and had to put in at Gander. Nobody there had the parts to fix it, so the captain decided to radio-navigate to Shannon as soon as he could get permission from New York. That took five more hours. After that there was the cab ride to your brother’s house.” McGarr laid a copy of the bill in front of her. He had had a Telex copy of that sent from Shannon only a few minutes before.

  “By the time you put the situation together, things were already happening. Hanly was drunk, Schwerr blinded by his love for May Quirk, and your brother Jamie had lost his grip on reality.

  “You and he got into his car and followed Schwerr and May Quirk—that is, you followed Fleming, who was following Hanly, who was following them—but when you got to the pasture, the situation had deteriorated.

  “Schwerr was beating May Quirk. He was roaring, cursing, and shouting. Hanly was staggering blindly toward them. Fleming had parked at the Cassidy farmhouse and was coming to the pasture on foot.

  “And then your brother Jamie jumped out and got his pitchfork from the back seat. He started after Schwerr, but he and Hanly had a tussle. Either your brother or Schwerr knocked Hanly cold, but in the melee your brother dropped the pitchfork. You then shot Schwerr.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “He was raving like a madman. He’s big, powerful. You couldn’t reason with him.

  “In the meantime, Fleming had come running. At the sound of the gunshot, he picked up the pitchfork, which he found near Hanly. He knew May Quirk carried a gun. He was the one who had contacted you about her discovery of the lab in the basement of his house. She had just filed a damaging story about him that linked him to the I.R.A., and then there was her work diary, which contained all that damaging information she had obtained by pumping Max Schwerr.” McGarr glanced at Nora Cleary.

  She tried unsuccessfully to keep her eyes straight ahead of her.

  “When May plunged her hand into her coat pocket, Fleming jabbed her.

  “Your brother, who was just reviving, saw that and went stark raving mad.

  “You figured it was best to get him in check because as a witness he had seen everything and Fleming, not just as a doctor alone, was the single most important person there, and so you went over to Jamie. He was bent over May Quirk, hugging her, crying, wailing, and so forth. You pulled him off her, but neither Fleming nor you could find her work diary.” McGarr looked closely at her.

  Her forehead had pulled back ever so slightly, but it was enough.

  “This work diary.” He pulled out a diary he had taken from May Quirk’s apartment less than an hour ago. It was a shill, of course, and not based
on the I.R.A. work.

  She looked up at him, despair in her eyes.

  “Hanly was out cold. So was Schwerr. What were your options? You could dump May Quirk over the cliffs, but that would make it look like an assassination. You knew we’d find out she was doing a piece on the I.R.A. You wanted to make it look like a crime of passion. That was why you got O’Connor to lead me to Schwerr the next day. Schwerr had blown his cover already, as had Hanly, whose usefulness was past anyhow. And making the crime somewhat complex would titillate us as well, make it seem like we had cracked one.

  “The person you couldn’t count on was your brother. And you couldn’t stay around and help him, either.

  “Do you know what my bet is?”

  She said, “We may as well hear it. It can’t be any wilder than these other fabrications.”

  “I bet your brother took the work diary off her there on the cliffs. She probably had it in the inside pocket of the coat. When he tried to see how bad she was hurt, either he found it or she, still alive, gave it to him. He had doubtless heard you talking about it. He took it, but not knowing what to do himself, appalled by what had happened, he raced across the pastures toward the cliffs. He had Hanly’s bottle of Canadian Club in his hands. You and Fleming ran after him. You couldn’t have him kill himself like that. It would confuse the picture a bit too much.

  “But Jamie couldn’t bring himself to jump. He had a bottle of booze in his hand, the very symbol of the only other social trouble he’d had in his life. He opened the top and dropped the cap where I found it, snagged in the gorse. He drank some, enough to make him drunk. He hadn’t eaten anything for days. That pacified him and you got him back into the car.

  “Fleming got another pitchfork from Cassidy’s field and stuffed it in Schwerr’s trunk, after making sure Hanly was out cold and running it down the side of Hanly’s car.

  “You took your brother home and, after believing you had talked him into going along with what had happened, you left the country.”

  “Why would I have to do that?”