Buried Troubles

by Marian McMahon Stanley

  CHAPTER 12

  Rosaria wended her way through the crowd waiting for tables at the entrance to Al Dente on Salem Street.

  “Hi Amy,” she called to the waitress hurrying by. “I have the vodka sauce tonight. I spoke to Dominic this afternoon for takeout.”

  “Hey, Ro. Right with you.” Straightening the ballpoint pen holding her brown hair in a twist, the harried waitress headed for the kitchen before looking back to say, “But there’s a lady at that table over there waiting for you. She said you might want to eat in.” Amy cocked her head toward the corner of the restaurant.

  Rosaria turned to a small side table tucked under a romantic scene of Lake Como. It was Justine. Rosaria tightened her lips. “No, that’s okay. I’ll pass. Just get me my takeout.”

  Amy looked over at Justine, who was raising her hand in a greeting, stolidly ignored by Rosaria. Amy turned back to Rosaria and shrugged. “Okay, suit yourself.”

  Rosaria steeled herself as she took her dinner from Amy and strode with purpose to the front door of the restaurant. She quickened her pace and went out the door even as she heard Justine calling her name.

  Chattering groups of families and friends crowded Rosaria off the narrow sidewalk. She was forced to walk in the street. Her sweater brushed against the fender of a giant Lincoln Navigator, inching along and taking the breadth of the narrow one-way street. Jesus. Why do people bring monster vehicles like this into dense city neighborhoods? There ought to be a law...

  “Rosaria. Rosaria.” She heard Justine’s heels clicking on the sidewalk behind her.

  Oh God, what was the matter with this woman? She had almost reached Prince Street when Justine, still carrying a napkin from Al Dente, caught up with her and grabbed her arm. Rosaria roughly pulled away.

  “Justine, what are you doing? You’re stalking me and I’m sick of this.”

  “I know, I know, Rosie...”

  “And don’t call me Rosie. Jesus Christ.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “You don’t need to talk to me. You need to leave me alone. That’s what you need to do.” Rosaria lowered her voice as a nearby couple stopped to stare. “Justine, I mean it,” she hissed. “You need to leave me alone. Get some help, for God’s sake.”

  “Rosaria, it’s not about me. I have something about Patrick, that boy Patrick.”

  Rosaria stopped. “What do you know about Patrick?”

  “When he came to the House.”

  “What house?”

  “Saint Martin’s.”

  Rosaria moved to the side to let a group pass. With her damaged right eye, she couldn’t see a woman approaching alongside her, carrying several large white plastic CVS bags. In moving to the side, she knocked one of the big bags out of the woman’s hands. “Sorry,” Rosaria held her hand up in apology and picked up the bag for the woman, who pursed her mouth and hurried on.

  “Come back to the restaurant and sit down,” Justine pleaded. “It’s important, but I’ll make it short.”

  Justine turned to walk up the street. Rosaria hesitated only a moment before following her, weaving her way through the crowds.

  Amy raised her eyebrows as Rosaria and Justine entered the restaurant again. Shortly after they sat at the small table, she brought a bottle of Rosaria’s favorite Chianti and took her Styrofoam container away to arrange the still hot pasta on a heavy shallow white bowl.

  “Tell me,” Rosaria said to Justine.

  Justine didn’t reply immediately, but settled herself in and poured them each a glass of wine. Rosaria could tell she was enjoying this occasion.

  “Let’s just get on with it,” Rosaria said

  Justine leaned her elbows on the table. “Maybe Solly told you that I volunteer at Saint Martin House once a week, counseling some clients. He may have told you that I’m a therapist.”

  Yes, Saints preserve us, Rosaria thought. How could such a woman be a competent therapist?

  Justine took a moment to enjoy the satisfaction of Solly’s having had this conversation with Rosaria. “Anyway, a while ago when I was coming into work, there was a very pleasant young Irishman in the waiting room. A good looking young guy. We got to chatting while I got my coffee and set up for the day. He introduced himself as Patrick Keenan and said he was waiting for Mr. Joyce, the director of the House.”

  “Yes, I know about that meeting. I set it up for Patrick myself.”

  “Oh, really?” Justine looked at Rosaria with a sly curiosity. “I wonder what it might have been about.” Rosaria did not respond.

  “So then my first appointment arrived. I told Patrick it was a pleasure to meet him, then I shut the office door. I didn’t see the boy after that.”

  Rosaria hadn’t touched the dinner Amy had set before her. “Is that it or is there more?” Rosaria asked.

  Justine continued as if Rosaria had not spoken. “Later, when I had finished with my client and opened my office door again, Liam Joyce’s door was closed, and a few minutes later, when I was in the workroom, I heard footsteps leaving. I walked back to my office and saw Liam’s—Mr. Joyce s—door open a crack, just enough for me to see him at his desk with his face in his hands. I knocked and asked if I could help. He didn’t answer and just stared into space. I repeated my question and he just said, ‘No, Justine, you can’t. There’s no help for it.’”

  “There’s no help for it,” Rosaria murmured. “No help for it?”

  “So, I was going to stay with Liam to see if I could help in some way—maybe just get him a cup of tea, be with him.”

  Well, Rosaria thought, Justine is certainly a mix. There’s weird, stalking Justine and then there’s compassionate caretaker Justine. Maybe the problem is that you never know which Justine is going to kick in.

  “But then I heard Declan Twomey,” Justine continued. “You know, the big construction guy? He’s on our Board.”

  Rosaria nodded.

  “Anyway, I heard his voice as he got off the elevator, heading toward Liam’s office, so I excused myself. Declan and Liam have a very close relationship, almost like father and son, and I thought Declan was in a better position to help. As I was leaving, I heard Mr. Twomey say, ‘Well, what happened?’”

  “Interesting.”

  “But there’s more, Rosie.”

  Rosaria stiffened and stared at Justine.

  She raised her palms and said, “Sorry, sorry. Rosaria.’ She allowed herself a small smile before continuing. ‘So, later that day I was up on the fourth floor taking pictures—I do all their photos for the House newsletter. Anyway, I was taking pictures of the new training program graduates—all dressed up in their suits, you know. Liam is usually in the group shots, but I got a message that he was delayed and to go ahead without him, that he might be up later.”

  Justine took a sip of her Chianti. She was starting to seem almost normal. But Rosaria had to remind herself in the midst of all this balance and helpfulness that Justine was not, in fact, always normal or balanced—at least in this chapter of her life.

  “So I took the photos, but the thing is, when I was reviewing them, I could see that I had caught some background I hadn’t meant to. Liam in the hall talking to Declan Twomey. Anyway, it looked like they were having words. I blew up the picture just to see. And it was strange.”

  “Strange?” asked Rosaria, her pasta with vodka sauce untouched before her.

  “What should I say about it?” Justine responded. “Dramatic. That’s what it was like...dramatic.”

  “Dramatic.”

  “Yes, I’ve never seen Liam like that. And Declan Twomey—he was just frightening looking.” Justine slid an eight-by-ten black and white from a manila envelope at her side and lay it flat at the table. The picture was painful to look at. Joyce’s face was anguished, like a picture Rosaria had once seen of the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, when he was pierced with many arrows. Joyce was a tall man but Twomey seemed to tower over him with an imposing bulk.

  “I have another one,” Just
ine said, as she placed a second photograph on the table. In this next one, Joyce looked about to weep, Twomey’s protective arm around the younger man’s shoulder, almost in a fatherly embrace.

  “What’s this about, Justine?”

  “I just don’t know, Rosaria, but it seemed important.”

  “It may be important.” Rosaria looked away for a moment and when she turned to look at Justine again, she said, “You need to call Solly for this, Justine. He needs to know about this.”

  “Are you sure, Rosaria?” Justine cocked her head and said innocently. “He doesn’t take my calls, you know.”

  “Call him at the station on the business line. I’ll tell him he needs to hear this.”

  “Well, that would be very helpful.”

  A little sarcasm, thought Rosaria. Unlike Justine.

  Later, as they stood and were preparing to leave the restaurant, Rosaria said, “Justine, I appreciate this very much, but that doesn’t mean we’re pals now.”

  “Perfectly clear, Rosaria,” Justine replied with a quiet, satisfied smile. “Perfectly clear.”

  CHAPTER 13

  CONNEMARA, IRELAND—1974

  The boy hadn’t been down to the Home after dark for a long time, but this night he decided to go. And this night was different. He saw an empty sheep transport truck, its lights low, creeping slowly into the cemetery, wheels thumping against the grassy hillocks and boulders of the roadless surface.

  The boy heard someone call softly, “Over here, lads.” Then, the boy could see a black car, which had been following the sheep transport with its headlights turned off, pull to the other side of the vault.

  Several men, dressed in dark clothes and trainers, stepped out of the truck and the car. One stayed behind in the shadows, a tall, bespectacled and bearded man leaning against the black car and watching the rest. To the boy, this man looked like a priest or maybe what the boy imagined a poet might look like.

  The men spoke in low voices, though the boy could hear what sounded like the hard, strange accents he’d heard on the Radio Eireann news about the war in the North.

  “Where are we now?” said one. “I thought we was going to Westport.”

  “No Westport tonight. Change of plans,” a broadly built man with a shock of ginger hair responded curtly. “Now, let’s get over there and help open the vault.”

  The boy could hear grunts and soft curses as two of the men struggled to dislodge the massive, mold-covered slab in front of the burial vault. The tall man just watched, never moving from the car to help. It was then that the boy saw his father step out of the shadows. Shouldering the two other men aside, his father grabbed the edge of the heavy slab with his big hands and took a deep, noisy breath. Then, in one powerful movement, he swung the slab to the side and cleared the entrance to the vault.

  “Good man,” the boy heard the man beside the car say.

  While the men and his father were opening the vault, another man had lifted up a false bottom of the sheep transport.

  Once the vault was opened, a gust of dank and stale air escaped that even the boy, at his distance, could smell. Two of men entered the vault. He heard them cursing as they struggled inside.

  “Jaysus. I can’t breathe in here.”

  “Where’s the frigging torch, I can’t see a damned thing.”

  “Shite, hit my frigging knee.”

  “Och, use big torch. That’s what it’s for. No one will see it in there,” the bearded man by the car called softly. “And keep your voices down. You’ll be waking the sisters.” The man lifted his chin towards his father. “Give the lads a hand again now, would you?”

  The boy’s father nodded and entered the vault, coming out shortly carrying one end of a long, heavy wooden crate while another of the men carried the other.

  It was slow and heavy work. The boy could hear the men grunting and softly cursing. Ten long, wooden crates came out of the vault all marked North Atlantic Fishing Gear and Marine Supply Company.

  “Open one,” ordered the tall man with the beard as he walked closer to the boxes.

  The ginger-haired man went over to the truck and returned with a crowbar. He quickly cracked open the top of one long crate. He lifted a long rubber fishing wader from the crate and reached inside.

  “Aye. Aye,” he whispered as he reverently lifted and kissed a long gun. The gun looked to the boy like the assault rifles he’d seen in the GI Joe comics his uncle had sent him from America, from Queens in New York.

  “This is the ticket then, boys.” The red-haired man grinned, holding up the assault rifle for the tall bearded man to see. “The Americans came through—finally.”

  “They took their sweet time about it” came a voice from behind him. “Thought they’d never stop with the planning and the talk. Jaysus.” Then, the man went silent for a moment, surveying the crates. “But, but...they delivered.”

  “Right,” said the bearded man, “Let’s pack it up. We have a long ride tonight.” He looked toward the boy’s father. “You’ll go in the truck to load the sheep?”

  His father raised his hand in agreement.

  “I’ll help him with the sheep,” said the man who thought they’d been headed to Westport. He started for the truck.

  “You’ll be going nowhere, sunshine,” said the ginger-haired man. He now carried a snub-nosed black gun his hand.

  The man turned in surprise, his face drained of color. “What’re you talking about?”

  The ginger-haired man came close and held the man’s face in his big left hand, squeezing hard with his own face inches away. “End of the road for touts. How much did they pay you, Johnny?”

  “What’re you talking about, man?” the man called Johnny said again. He started to back up and stumbled over the hillocks of rough grass. I’m no tout. You’re crazy to talk like that.”

  “Jesus, how stupid do you think we are, ya bastard you?”

  The redheaded man kept walking forward as Johnny pulled away and backed up, looking around for any support and finding none. “Tell him,” he pleaded as he searched the faces of the other men, who all stared back expressionless. One spat to the side in contempt.

  “Oh, Jesus. You’ve got it all wrong,” Johnny beseeched in a high, strangled voice.

  “Oh, no. We’ve got it all right, ya son of a bitch. Why do you think we told you the guns were going to Westport when they were coming here all along?” the ginger-haired man snickered. “I’ll wager there are guards all over the Westport hills tonight.”

  Now the man with the beard spoke. “We could do much worse by you, Johnny—a much uglier ending than a bullet. You know that.”

  Johnny fell to his knees and began to weep.

  “You’ve done that for us,” the bearded man continued. “You’ve done worse and more to men who deserved it far less.” His speech became faster and harder. “Deserved it far less than a traitor who would inform on this many men and this many guns here and the Americans supporting us on the other side. Stop your sniveling before we change our mind about how you end.” His mouth twisted in disgust.

  “How much was it worth to you?” asked the redheaded man. “The new car? The vacation to Majorca with the wife? That goddamned butch of a watch? Did you think we wouldn’t notice?”

  “I’ve got kids, I’ve got kids,” Johnny sobbed.

  “So do the men you sold out,” the bearded man said. “Jesus, man! Stand up. This is a hell of a way to take it.”

  The ginger-haired man raised the small black gun and looked briefly at the bearded man, who gave the order with a curt nod before turning away and starting for his car.

  Johnny stood up while the ginger-haired man was facing the bearded man. At first Johnny stood unsteadily, but he stood. He held a rock in his hand that he’d taken from the ground where he knelt. A jagged rock, a hard rock. With a roar, he threw the rock at the redheaded man. “Take that, ya murdering son of a bitch,” he sobbed.

  The rock’s sharp edge hit the ginger-haired man i
n the right side of his face— giving him a savage gash along his cheek that drew blood—copious amounts of blood. “Jesus Christ,” he hollered as he fell back a few steps and touched his bloody face with his hand. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Then, he laughed. A big man’s laugh. Through all the blood, he laughed. “Thanks be to God, Johnny. Jesu, I thought you were going to go down like a stuck pig, and not the man you used to be before you took your thirty pieces.”

  There was the crack of a gun and Johnny went down.

  “Put him in the truck,” the bearded man called over his shoulder as he opened the car door. “Get rid of it in one of the bogs.”

  The boy wondered when the dead man had become an it.

  The bearded man looked around him then, speaking to no one in particular, his voice thick with the distaste of a city man for Connemara’s barren landscape of mountains, rocks, and boggy moors, and followed with “God knows you’ve got enough of them out here.”

  “Right, lads, let’s load up now. What say you?” the ginger-haired man said in a matter of fact, workaday voice, as if he had not just laid waste to the big man lying the length of a fence post away from him.

  CHAPTER 14

  Solly had told Rosaria about his interview with Declan Twomey to find out what Twomey might have seen or heard at Saint Martin’s the day of Patrick’s visit. She knew too that they had discussed the conversation Declan had with Liam Joyce—the one captured in Justine’s photo—in which Declan had appeared angry and Liam deeply distraught.

  Twomey had explained to Solly that Joyce had just been upset—pressures of the job. On that day, Twomey said, Joyce had been distressed about the latest altercation in the breakfast line outside the House and had felt uncomfortable asking Twomey for more money to build out the Atrium to accommodate client overflow. Twomey was angry that Joyce was hesitant to ask for help. That’s all there was to it.

  Solly told Rosaria that he thought there was more there, but he couldn’t get it out of Twomey. Rosaria was familiar enough with Solly’s style to predict that he’d be back at Declan Twomey sooner rather than later with the same question. With his persistent, patient approach, Solly’s track record showed that he usually had a good shot at breaking through if anything was to be had there.