Rosaria looked at Mossie blankly. The woman who’d put the sweater around her shoulders stepped between them protectively. Rosaria held a hand up to the woman, “It’s okay.” To Mossie, she said, “Yes, you did, Mossie. Yes, you did. I should have listened. You were a better judge of character.”
“Oh, he was a smooth one now. The Professor,” he spat in contempt. “A professor of shite, that’s what he’s a professor of...”
Gerard Conneely took Mossie by the arm. “Walk with me now, man. Over here. Calm down and talk to me about what you know.”
Mossie turned to the guard, “Oh, I’ll tell you what I know all right.” Then, as he walked to a nearby table with Conneely, he called to the barmaid, “Give us a pint now, Claire. My nerves are shattered. I have a savage thirst.” He turned to the guard. “The first time I met him—without even a how do you do—he insulted the club. I knew he was no good after that.”
Rosaria saw the guards jaw tighten with a look that said, Oh, did he now? As good as convicted, she thought.
Mossie shared his impressions of Hugh Moran, including some dramatic embellishment, with Sergeant Conneely and his colleagues. When Mossie touched once again on the subject of Hugh’s gratuitous insult on the Galway hurlers, Rosaria wondered if that insult would be part of the written criminal complaint.
CHAPTER 37
Solly was scheduled to catch the flight over to Shannon the next night. He was beside himself with worry, rage and frustration after Bridie called him to tell him about the events on the bog road.
“Now, I want you to just stay where you are, Rosie,” he said when he called. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” she lied.
“Is Bridie with you?”
“Yes, yes. She’s staying over and Nora Keenan will be here this afternoon. The Garda have a car outside and Mossie is camped out in the driveway in his van and won’t move. Please come, Solly, and send all these good people home.”
Rosaria hadn’t had nightmares since her arrival in Ireland. But that night, she slept fitfully, dreaming of shadowy figures chasing her over a landscape that wouldn’t hold her weight, ground that kept collapsing under her. She regretted dismissing the doctor who had wanted to give her a couple of strong sleeping pills.
Marguerite, who called constantly, was furious with her for not getting prescription help. “Why do you always have to pretend to be so strong? False pride. That’s what it is. False pride. And that’s a sin, you know. A big sin.” Rosaria closed the call without saying goodbye.
She woke early to Fergus at her feet and Bridie making coffee, eggs and brown bread toast in the kitchen. Rosaria had just limped to the big green chair, refusing Bridie’s offer of help, and taken a grateful sip of her friend’s good coffee when her cell rang.
“I’ll get that for you. Don’t answer,” Bridie called from the kitchen.
“No, I’ve got it,” Rosaria responded when she saw the name on the phone. Thomas Martin. Was Theresa Martin calling? Maybe she’d heard about last night on the bog road. She answered and found it wasn’t Theresa Martin calling. It was her mother Eleanor Martin.
“Ms. O’Reilly, Eleanor Martin here,” Thomas Martin’s widow announced in her flat, affectless and shy voice. Rosaria could picture Mrs. Martin in her tidy kitchen with her wool skirt, the shadow of a scapula beneath a pastel polyester blouse. “I heard about your trouble last night. Are you all right now?”
“I am, Mrs. Martin. Good of you to phone.”
“It’s important that I see you, Ms. O’Reilly, if you’re free. I know this is not a good time, but I need to tell you some things. Important things. Things that need to be told.” I see.
“Do you have anyone who can drive you to Saint Joseph’s Church this morning? I would like to meet you there with Father Roche. Are you well enough to take the ride into town?”
Rosaria didn’t respond immediately, looking at her bruised leg which throbbed in complaint even at the thought of getting up to move around.
“I wouldn’t ask you but I need to tell you some important things before I lose my courage. It would be easier for me to do that in the church with Father Roche there.”
Rosaria recalled uncomfortably that just the day before someone else had persuaded her to drive to Roundstone so that he could tell her some important information, and she’d almost died for it. Still, this was Eleanor Martin and Father Roche. Rosaria was intrigued. Mossie could drive her.
“Yes, I’ll be there, Mrs. Martin. Forty minutes?”
“Good. The small chapel at the back of the church. I’ll be there with Father Roche.”
Rosaria closed the phone and looked up to see Bridie with her arms folded across her chest. “You’ll be where, missy?” she demanded.
“Saint Joseph’s. To pray for your soul, Ms. Callahan. Would you ask Mossie to come in? I need him to drive me to church.”
◆◆◆
There were one or two people in the main body of the church when Rosaria arrived, holding on to Mossie’s arm. She saw Eleanor Martin and Father Roche sitting side by side in a back chapel. Banks of votive candles flickered before a statue of Saint Theresa.
“You can deposit me here, Mossie.” Rosaria pointed to a pew in front of Eleanor Martin and the priest. She sat and stretched her leg to the side to support it and turned to face them, her elbow over the back of the pew. “Good morning. Forgive me, I have to keep this leg up.”
“God, yes,” said the priest. He rose to get a pillow from a side kneeler and placed it under her leg.
“How’re you getting on, Ms. O’Reilly? I’ve never heard of such thing as you had happen to you last night.”
“And I hope you never do again, Father,” Rosaria smiled and turned to Eleanor Martin. “It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Martin.”
“I wish it were under other circumstances,” Eleanor replied, fingering a crystal rosary in her lap.
“Yes, I do too,” said Rosaria. And then she waited for Eleanor Martin to give her a clue as to the important information she had to tell her. But there was nothing forthcoming. Instead, Mrs. Martin stared at Rosaria and counted the beads of her rosary, murmuring the prayers and mysteries.
Finally, the priest intervened. “Thomas told Eleanor about something that happened here many years ago. Her daughter Theresa knows the core of the story, but, Eleanor would like to share the rest of the story that she knows with you now.” He put his hand on the widow’s shoulder for encouragement.
“Thank you, Mrs. Martin,” said Rosaria looking at the woman who seemed about to collapse in on herself.
Then, in a burst of energy, Eleanor Martin straightened her back, folded the rosary into an embroidered purse and started to talk. To Rosaria, she looked for all the world like a brave little sparrow.
“Theresa told you about the IRA murder at the Saint Mary of Egypt Mother and Baby Home forty-five years ago.”
“She did,” Rosaria replied.
“It was an IRA man from the north. He was executed for being an informer.”
“Did Thomas know who murdered him?”
She shook her head. “Liam never told Thomas that part or told him any names. So, Thomas never knew. But I knew.” She looked at Rosaria with what might have been old pride in keeping her long-held secret. “The man who was murdered was a Johnny Powers and it was a Belfast man named Declan Twomey that did the deed.”
Rosaria couldn’t speak for a few moments. Momentarily disoriented, she put her hand to her mouth and shook her head slowly. Declan Twomey. How could that be and how in the world did Eleanor Martin know this?
Rosaria took her hand from her mouth, about to ask this very question when Eleanor spoke again. “You see, Thomas thought he was keeping secrets from me, but I was the one that knew the real story.” She let out a deep breath.
“I told no one, not even Thomas. There would be nothing but trouble for us if anyone found out what we knew.”
Rosaria recognized the ingrained survival habits of an island
long occupied by oppressors. “Whatever you say, say nothin’” was a mantra that had carried through the generations even into the old Irish neighborhoods of South Boston and Charles town.
“But, how did you come to know that full story, Mrs. Martin?”
Eleanor settled in her seat and started to talk. Her eyes were slightly unfocused. Rosaria could see the woman was in another place and time now.
“It was when Thomas and I were courting. One night near the lane when it was quite dark but for the moon, Thomas and I were sitting under an old tree where we liked to meet. We’d talk for hours there,” Eleanor said, with a gentle, long-ago smile. “One night, almost before we were each about to go home to our families, Thomas fell asleep. He worked so hard at the farm for his father, you see, he’d get exhausted. I sat there with Thomas’s head on my lap. The night was sweet with the moon above. And the sounds of the fields all around. We were so in love, you know.” She paused for a moment, a soft expression on her face, still back in time forty-five years. Rosaria could see the lush, pretty young countrywoman Eleanor must have been then.
After some time, she continued, “I heard voices then coming up the lane. Two men coming along and talking quiet-like. I recognized one voice as Mr. Joyce, Liam’s father. The other voice had a hard accent. I thought it was from the North, but I had never heard that voice before.”
Eleanor took a deep breath and crossed herself. “They were talking about guns—the guns they were bringing onto the shore at the Mother and Baby Home. None of us in the village were supposed to know about that, but there were always whispers about.
The man from the North was saying to Mr. Joyce that you had to take care of touts—I didn’t know what that word meant then—touts. But he said you had to take care of informers right away or everyone was in danger. And he for one was not afraid to do what needed to be done. No one would ever think that Declan Twomey was afraid of doing the hard things to take care of business.”
They were all quiet for a few moments. “And you never told anyone this, Eleanor?”
“No, I didn’t. Not even Thomas. It was as I told you, better for him not to know.” She looked at Rosaria and at the priest. “Those were dangerous times. And now, I can see that these are dangerous times too, Father. Young Patrick Keenan killed. Murderers with guns chasing an innocent woman across the bog at night. And my own Thomas. Do you think I didn’t know that he died wrong too?” She started to cry, as the priest patted her shoulder. “A fall in the garden, never,” she said with disdain. “I’m not a fool. It’s enough. And him not even knowing the name of the killer. They thought he did, but I was the one that knew. Not Thomas. If they come for me, I’m ready to go. The bastards. It’s enough.”
Turning to the priest, she added, “Sorry, Father.”
The priest smiled. “You’re forgiven, Eleanor.”
Rosaria reached her arm now over the back of the pew and placed her hand on Eleanor’s, still folded in her lap. “You’re very brave, Eleanor. Would you be willing to share your story with the Garda?”
“Yes, I would.” The little pointed jaw on her heart-shaped face moved outward slightly in resolution.
“Sergeant Conneely should be back at the station now. May I ask him to come here to talk to you or would you like to call him yourself?”
“You can call him. I’ll wait here with Father. Is that all right with you, Father?” Eleanor asked the priest.
He nodded and then asked Rosaria, “Shall I ask Mossie to come in and help you to your car, Ms. O’Reilly? Or would you want to stay?”
“Thank you, Father. Perhaps I will stay, but I think I should go out now for a bit and call Sergeant Conneely first. And I probably should move my leg around some. Yes, Mossie can help me.”
The priest walked out the door to the chapel and the room became very quiet. The votive candles flickered, each sending up someone’s prayer to Saint Theresa in thin, continuous streams of smoke and supplication. Immersed in the silence for a moment, Rosaria was allowing herself a brief sliver of time to digest what she’d heard. It was then that Eleanor Martin said in a quiet, determined voice behind her, “Cathal McKenna murdered that man.”
It felt as if time had stopped in the little chapel. Rosaria was aware of Father Roche and Mossie frozen at the door.
“Say that again, Eleanor?” the priest asked.
“The Declan Twomeys of this world do a job. They take care of business. But someone else was the murderer that night just as if he had pulled the trigger himself.”
Rosaria heard a sharp intake of breath from Father Roche. “Cathal McKenna, Eleanor? Are you sure?”
She gave the priest a grave look. “Cathal McKenna was at the site—at the Mother and Baby Home cemetery and ordered the murder. That’s what Declan Twomey said that night. He said that Cathal McKenna was there and had ordered him to take care of Johnny Powers that night.”
“Cathal McKenna.” Rosaria repeated.
“The big man himself. Mr. Bloody Peace Process himself.”
CHAPTER 38
Solly picked up Rosaria’s call just as he was leaving his office to wrap up a few things before flying over to Ireland that night. “You okay?” he asked.
“I’m okay. Everything’s okay. Cancel your flight tonight.”
“What the hell?”
Then, Rosaria told him Eleanor’s story.
“So, it’s the story of knowing too much,” Solly said after a long, thoughtful pause. “Patrick knew too much. Someone had to take care of him.”
“Yes, and it would never be Liam Joyce who could take care of Patrick, but he might be pretty sure who did. I think that’s really devastating him, not the old story coming out. You’d better stay home and go talk to Liam Joyce and Declan Twomey.”
“I guess. Jesus. This is rich. The police there involved?”
“They are now. Gerard Conneely has your card. He’ll call with details and follow-up.”
“And I’ll head off to see Saint Liam. Are you okay? This is all making me crazy with worry about you.”
“I’m good, Solly. Don’t worry.”
“And you were right about the answer being in Ireland.”
“It was a long shot.”
“Yeah, but you still called it.”
“Solly, the answers were on both sides of the Atlantic. We’re a good team.”
“Miss you.”
“Love you, sweetheart. I’ve been scared to death.”
“Me too on both counts.”
◆◆◆
It all hit her physically when she arrived back at the cottage from Saint Joseph’s. Ready to fall into bed, she took one last call from Solly. “You resting?”
“About to collapse into bed.”
“Who’s there?”
“Everybody, but they’re all in the kitchen. Where are you? Did you talk to Joyce or Twomey yet?”
“Chatham Police are going to pull Twomey in—he’s down at his Cape house. Irish security police are on the next flight from Dublin to talk to him. I’m on my way to Vermont.”
“Vermont? What for?”
“I’m going to the monastery to see Brother Liam.”
“What the hell?”
“Our Liam has joined the Trappists.”
“Jesus.” Rosaria thought she remembered that Trappists were a contemplative order. “Will they let you talk to him?”
“Apparently, and he sounds like he’s ready.”
CHAPTER 39
The guards had picked up both men who’d chased Rosaria in the bog, but Hugh Moran was not to be found in either his apartment or his university offices. A teaching assistant covered his classes for the moment while the University tried to locate him.
Before the guards could cordon off Hugh Moran’s office, sometime in the wee early morning hours, an intruder had broken into the department offices. Nothing was taken but Hugh Moran’s office was ravaged. The computer monitor was smashed, and the computer itself was damaged—though not enough that the guards
could not scrutinize it for the investigation. A broken hurley stick, left on the desk atop Professor Moran’s shattered office name plate, was used to wreak this havoc. Framed memorabilia, photographs, certifications, honors were thrown to the floor and ground under heavy boots. A flag from the County Kilkenny hurling team was torn to shreds and burned. The University was just glad that the fire did not spread, that Dr. Moran’s research and paper files were not destroyed and that the damage was confined to his office.
“Had a busy night last night, did you, O’Toole?” Sergeant Conneely pulled his police car up next to Mossie’s Renault van on Market Street the next day.
“You’re looking peaked, I’d say.”
“I’m never better,” responded Mossie, jaw out, staring straight ahead.
Conneely nodded and regarded the big man before pulling away. “You take care of yourself now, Mossie. Good men are hard to find.”
CHAPTER 40
The leaves hadn’t begun to turn yet, but the air was cool and crisp and autumnal. Solly and the soon-to-be-Brother Liam Joyce walked along a clear, flat path in the woods behind Saint Benedict’s Monastery in the Vermont hills. Liam’s walk, with his hands clasped behind his back and his head down, struck Solly. A penitential walk.
“I’m not really a brother yet,” Liam told Solly. “Still in my probationary period. Ordinarily I would not have been able to talk to an outsider during this time, but they could hardly refuse police business.” He looked at Solly with a gentle smile. “I certainly hope you have not undermined my chances for a delayed vocation by casting suspicion on my moral character, Detective.”
“That depends, Mr. Joyce.” Solly returned the smile.
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