Irish Cream
Page 29
We stayed up all night watching the news.
The eejits still saying that there were seventeen dead.
Until a tiny woman in white Coast Guard summer fatigues appeared with two and half bars sewed on her lapel.
“Have you found any other bodies, Commander?”
“Only another little girl, clutching her dolly.”
“You’ll have to find fifteen others, won’t you?”
“Nossir. We’uns a finding only eight more bodies. John Patrick O’Sullivan, his wife Madeline, and their sons Sean and Patrick and their wives, and four children. Three members of the O’Sullivan family were not on the plane.”
She allowed her rich mountain country speech to creep in.
“Down to Stinkin’ Crek, West Virgina, where I come from, happen this kind of thing, folks’d be saying the man a polecat that takes them kind of risk.”
“What mistakes did Sean O’Sullivan make?”
“A takin’ off.”
“Some pilots are saying that he was disoriented by the overcast.”
“Happen that’s up ta NTSB, National Transportation Safety Board. We uns jest find the bodies and clear the wreckage ’way.”
During the night, the carrion media people came up with more information. They learned that Sean O’Sullivan had initially failed his test for an authorization to fly a plane on instruments, that the plane had been christened the “Flying Irish” and was painted navy blue and gold, that Sean and Patrick had been arrested for disorderly conduct and were out on bail, which they had violated when flying out of the jurisdiction, that neither son had in fact been all-American at Notre Dame, that Maura had just fallen short of a partnership at the renowned firm of Minor, Grey, that the Northfield electronics company had bought the plane for the CEO, and that its use for flying to a family Baptism in Michigan City might have violated the law.
Early on, I phoned Jim Creaghan.
“Tell your wives that they should answer no questions from the media. They should let Damian be their point man.”
At nine o’clock there was a news conference on the shore. The sky was clear, the Lake a quiet aquamarine, a light breeze on the trees in the background.
Commandeer McCloud had a statement to make.
“Happen you notice that thar big craft out on the water … its the Coast Guard cutter Mackinac. It will try to locate the wreck precisely, to lift the fuselage of the aircraft out of the water and bring it over to Navy Pier. Our craft and those of the Chicago police are out there searching for possible survivors.”
“Do you expect you will find any survivors, Commander?”
“Happen we do, we right proud and grateful.”
The next hitter to step into the box was Damian.
“I want to say that my two sisters and their husbands and I are deeply sorrowed at the deaths of so many members of our family. We will miss them. We also look forward to meeting them again on some other and better day. The Irish believed in human survival long before St. Patrick came to Ireland and nothing since then has caused us to change our minds.”
“Ordain him!” Nuala shouted in my ear.
“Damian, did you not know that your brother’s clearance for instrument flying had been refused by the FAA, then approved.”
“I did not know that. I hope it’s not true.”
“Have you really inherited the family firm?”
“A lawyer tells me that Dad left the controlling majority of the firm to his sons. I guess I’m the only one left. The lawyer says that there’s no doubt about it.”
“So you stand to benefit from this tragedy?”
Damian hesitated.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Won’t you become the new CEO?”
“Hardly. I’m an artist. I have asked my brother-in-law Jim Creaghan to become temporary CEO until we can elect a new board.”
“Have you made funeral plans yet?”
“No.”
Cindy and Ethne stood behind him, glaring at the reporters.
“We are told that parents of the wives are both threatening suit against the company, would you comment on that?”
“They would certainly be within their rights if they did that.”
“Did you know that your brothers were charged with felonies arising from a fight on Southport Avenue?”
“Yes, I knew that.”
“And that your father was trying to find a plea bargain.”
“I did not know that, but I’m not surprised.”
“Thank you,” sister Cindy said, ending the press conference.
“Will Mr. O’Sullivan be available for further questioning, Cindy?”
“I doubt it There’s time to answer questions and time to mourn.”
“Good on her!” my wife said.
“She’s a very smart lawyer and a fine woman,” I said piously.
“She’s not a famous poet … Did I tell you what the Christmas concert will be this year?”
“It will be called Festivals and will have a song for all the festivals that some poet wrote poems about.”
“That,” I admitted, “is a very good idea. Naturally you will want to buy the rights from this poet guy.”
“Poor dear man.”
23
THE WAKE was a disaster area. The Lake Forest police had set up checkpoints for people coming and leaving, then a couple of Mike Casey’s guys stood at the door, pushing back members of the media who argued that it was their right to shoot the wake scene inside. There was a lot of pushing and shoving.
We had driven up with the Caseys in Mike’s car, so a reserved parking place awaited us. The media were not interested in us, so we passed through easily.
Before we left Grand Beach to drive to our house on Southport we had to explain to the kids that Damian’s parents and brothers had been killed in a plane crash. Nelliecoyne had sobbed. The Mick had wept too.
“Why did God let them die, Da?”
“We all have to die sometime, Mick. God called them home early for reasons of his own.”
“I hope God knows what he’s doing.”
“He usually does.”
“God loves everyone,” Socra Marie said piously, not understanding yet what death meant, not that any of us ever do.
After we had left them at my mom’s, Nellie had run out to hug her mother again. She whispered something into Nuala’s ear.
“What did herself say?”
“That the little girls are already in heaven.”
“As a theory?”
“Och, Dermot Michael, do we Irish witches ever have theories. She said it as an established fact.”
So that was that.
If the media vultures at the wake missed Nuala Anne completely, they hit a gold mine when the families of the two daughters got out of their limos. One mother, hopelessly obese, screamed at the camera.
“They killed our daughter and grandchildren. We’re going to sue them for every cent they have.”
The other said, “They took my daughter away from us, and now all they can give back is a closed coffin.”
The families were both from small towns, one in Indiana, the other in Iowa. They were proud to have sent their daughters to St. Mary’s and proud of their good marriages. They had no hint about the family circle into which their daughters had been drawn. Now they were finding out that it was a swamp of corruption and madness, the like of which they would never comprehend.
We walked into the funeral parlor. Both of us stopped in our tracks. We had never seen a wake with ten closed caskets, four of them small for the children. The mourners had placed a picture of each of the victims on the caskets. Such cute and vibrant little kids, such handsome adults.
What a horrible scene! Dear God, why?
I don’t have to answer that.
Yes, but …
Were you around when I did the Big Bang thing?
I know that line you gave Job.
So why quiz me? Do you think I love these poor people any less?
No.
Good … And you and herself shouldn’t feel guilty. Like me you did all that you could.
While we were waiting in the line of well-dressed people, the families of the wives barged up to assault Kate and Maura, both of whom merely bowed their heads and accepted the assault. One of the women slapped Maura. Mike’s guys eased her out of the parlor. She screamed and punched and cursed all the way out.
Kate and Maura sat in chairs, their babes safe with babysitters in the undertaker’s office.
Poor Damian had to greet everyone who came in, which he did with ease and charm. Ethne lurked behind him, ready to do battle if anyone threatened him.
“Thanks for coming, Dermot,” he said to me. “This is terrible. Something like it would have had to happen. We’re on our own now, whether we like it or not.”
Our ride back to Southport was quiet.
“He’s still doing great work,” Annie told us. “He will become a very successful painter. That drawing of your little one and the dogs is wonderful.”
In Nuala’s office, we collapsed on our respective chairs. She pulled out the magic envelope and gave it to me.
“Where will you park that Navigator?” I asked her.
“I’ll find a place.”
I opened the enveloped and read the first note.
It’s all pretty obvious, Dermot. In Ireland Liam is the man who killed Tim Allen. Perhaps Allen was hassling some of his girl students. All poor Father Dick could see was the nice intelligent young man. He did not realize that for all his gentleness Liam was a Fenian ideologue. It was a case of not looking at the most likely killer, because he didn’t want to look. He didn’t even consider the possibility that Liam had a gun—though he mentions he is a hunter. He considers all the other people who might have rifles and can’t cope with the truth that none of them were the kind of hot-tempered young romantic who might actually have killed a traitor who, as he thought, was attacking an Irishwoman.
“The second time,” she said to me as I put the sheet of paper down, “he must have known who shot Lord Skeffington. Why else the haste in getting them out of the country. The visit from Boyd Lufton, clearly an English spy, clinches it. I think Liam didn’t mean to hit His Lordship, but did it quite by accident. He wanted him to stay out of Irish politics, which were none of his business. Of course he could have killed him accidentally. I suspect he confessed to Father Dick, who promptly arranged for the marriage to put Liam out of risk. You’ll note he never mentions any suspicion of Liam, which is really strange when you consider how smart Father Dick was. He knew all right, probably before the second shooting. But he didn’t want to know.”
“Why didn’t I see it?”
“Because you’re such a good man that you don’t suspect other good people when sometimes you should.”
I opened the second note.
Madge is the woman in the case. Dux femina facti. You notice how long it was before we learned anything about her. So because we hear nothing we assume that she’s a pushover and couldn’t hurt anyone. She’s too sweet to run over a drunken man. However, I’ve begun to ask myself what kind of a woman it is who will buy into the collective neurosis around her husband. Either she’s a total simp or she is the neurosis. She engineered it, orchestrated it, and enforces it. I don’t know why unless she needed to control her husband and found that this was the way to go. So my vote goes for her. Besides, I know she’s what Cindasue calls the bad un.
“I think,” she said aloud, “that everything since then confirms my hunch. A grandmother who won’t come to see her new granddaughter in the hospital and doesn’t even call … Dermot that’s a bad woman.”
“And she does finally come to force an unwanted Baptism!”
“It took a long time for us to figure out what she’s really like. By then we’re like Father Dick, not able to see what she is … Her aura was the ugliest I’ve ever seen.”
“But that doesn’t prove she ran over Rod Keefe.”
“We know that the sons were too weak to kill anyone but themselves and their families. The father’s style isn’t murder but tilting the playing field. Once he figured out a way to do that he calmed down and so too probably did the sons. We can safely exclude Katie. That left either the mother or Maura. My inclination was to think a woman who would persecute a kid all his life because she didn’t want another child and because the pregnancy was difficult would do anything to preserve the ideal family she had created for herself. She probably left the dinner to get something out of the car or to go home early, that we’ll never know …”
“It still could have been Maura. She wasn’t always as pathetic as she is now.”
“No, it couldn’t. She knew the kind of trouble that an apparent murder would stir up for the family would be worse than a public fight over a patent. Besides, she knew her father would tilt the field once again, like he always had.”
“Maybe.”
“I’d guess that Madge saw him lying in the driveway on the parking lot. She was so angry at him for the attack on her sons that she ran him down and then, frightened by what she had done, she backed up over him again. Then she tried to get away and went over him a second time. Then she ran back to the parking lot, leaving her keys in the ignition. She wasn’t very bright to begin with and she’d probably had a bit too much of the drink taken like the rest of them. Maura spotted her mother’s key ring, took it away and later slipped it into her mother’s purse. She knew all along. However, she was willing to sacrifice her brother to save her mother, especially because she didn’t know that her father had persuaded his corporate lawyer to see that Damian went to jail. For all these years she has been carrying around guilt for both events. She and Day have made peace, but she’ll have a lot to work through.”
“That’s all speculation, Nuala Anne, though I admit that it’s good.”
“No it’s not speculation. Didn’t herself confess it all to me at the wake? She wondered if she should make it all public.”
“And you told her?”
“That her first obligation was to Damian. For her to go public would be another terrible blow to him. I said she should tell it to a priest, then forget about it. She could atone by loving her husband and her son and her brother and start a whole new family culture. That can be done, you know, Dermot Michael.”
“’Tis true.”
“And we have to be their parents, don’t we now?”
“Do we?”
“Aren’t they orphans? Don’t they need a mother and father? Aren’t we that already?”
“Fair play to you, Nuala Anne!”
“God will just have to take care of the others. We did all that we could. Doesn’t he love them as much as he loves us?”
“’Tis true.”
I was in no mood for theology. Or anything else. With possibly one exception.
“Can we go up to Grand Beach now? Sure, it isn’t too late? I miss the kids!”
“No. We need a good night’s sleep to get that wake out of our system.”
“You’re right, Dermot Michael, as always. Sure, I want to see the little one now that she has an identity.”
“Has she now?”
“Didn’t you hear what she said to that nice cabin attendant? ‘I go Ireland.’ She’s an ‘I’ now. She’s developing her own nice little ego.”
“Nice it will be, little, I’m not so sure.”
We laughed, then were silent for a moment, pondering perhaps all our responsibilities new and old.
“I can hardly wait till we get to Ireland.” Nuala sighed. “It will cleanse our souls of all this bullshite about Irish cream.”
“Irish rain will clean out anything,” I agreed.
We both sighed and were silent for some time.
“’Tis true that they made love in the fields after wakes in the old days,” she said, as if in deep thought. “Didn’t me ma tell me that her granny said that she knew people that did it.”
“They never did,”
I insisted, though I knew that they had.
“Och, they did, Dermot. Weren’t they saying ‘fock you, death!’”
“Sounds to me like very muddy and messy behavior … and pagan at that.”
“’Tis a very Christian symbol—life and love are stronger than death.”
“Too bad we don’t have any pratie fields here.”
“We do have an empty house …”
“’Tis true.” I sighed as though it would mean hard work that I didn’t want to do.
“No kids, no dogs, no Danuta or Ethne.”
“’Tis true.”
We both sighed again.
I rose from my chair, dragged her to her feet, and we folded into each other’s arms.
Then at some length and with great vigor and not a little creativity we celebrated our belief that life and love were stronger than death.
ALSO BY ANDREW M. GREELEY FROM TOM i ASSOCIATES
NUALA ANNE McGRAIL NOVELS
Irish Gold
Irish Lace
Irish Whiskey
Irish Mist
Irish Eyes
Irish Love
Irish Stew!
Irish Cream
Irish Crystal
All About Women
Angel Fire
Angel Light
Contract with an Angel
Faithful Attraction
The Final Planet
Furthermore!: Memories of a Parish Priest
God Game
Star Bright!
Summer at the Lake
The Priestly Sins
White Smoke
Sacred Visions (editor with Michael Cassutt)
The Book of Love (editor with Mary G. Durkin)
Emerald Magic: Great Tales of Irish Fantasy (editor)
BISHOP BLACKIE RYAN MYSTERIES
The Bishop and the Missing L Train
The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germain
The Bishop in the West Wing
The Bishop Goes to The University
The Bishop in the Old Neighborhood
THE O’MALLEYS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY