by Kate Sweeney
“Okay,” Michael said. “There are only numbers on a couple of pages.” He counted them silently. “About twenty entries. Codes, codes, and amounts.”
“So we can assume that one code has to be a name or names and the other…” Deirdre shrugged.
“Dates?” Annabel offered.
“Mick, did the boys ever tell you what or how they got this information?” Maureen asked, taking a forkful of eggs.
“Honestly, they may have. But I was so strung out on that shit. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We’ll figure it out.” She took the book from Deirdre. “Dates? Hmm. Ya may be right. If I were keeping track, that would be one thing I’d want, other than the name and how much money…”
“Maureen,” Michael said, toying with his coffee mug.
“What?” Maureen asked.
“Can you tell me about what you were doing in Paris?”
Maureen looked up. She sat back and set her fork down. There was silence for a moment or two.
“I know ya went there because of me.” He rubbed his forehead tiredly and stared out the window. She looked at Deirdre then. “Ya see, Dee, I got myself in with Tommy Doyle. The fucker...” He hissed in anger, then went on calmly. Though it took several breaths.
“You don’t need to tell me, Mick,” Deirdre said.
“Yeah, I do. He gave me money, clothes, a car. All to run his drugs for him from Galway to Dublin and Cork to Donegal.” He laughed sadly. “Maureen and I fought horrible. She tried to get me to stop. She’d done everything she could.” He looked fondly at Maureen. “Did ya know she had graduated early from school? Got a good job in a hotel in Dublin. All to keep us together.”
“A lot of good it did me.”
Michael laughed then. “Conall helped us more than he knows.”
Maureen laughed reluctantly and looked at Annabel. “I was good with numbers,” she said, and Annabel saw the color rush to her face.
“Conall Murphy?”
Maureen nodded. “I don’t know how, but mathematics came easy to me. I knew that the only way out was to play the game. Go to school, get educated. Get a job and keep Michael. So at sixteen, I lied about my age. It wasn’t hard, I had no birth certificate. So I told the hotel I was eighteen. I got the job, got a government ID card, and driver’s license. I went to court to gain custody of Michael until he was of legal age. I used the system to my advantage for the first time,” she said with a shrug.
“Did it work?” Trevor sat at the counter with the rest of them.
“It did. The court granted me custody of him until he was eighteen. For years, we were on the road to being a real family. He went to school while I worked,” she said, then glanced at Annabel.
“I remember the fights we’d get into just to get me to school,” Michael said.
“You were a pain in my arse.” She looked around the table before continuing. “I-I did some things I’m not too proud of. While I was working at the hotel, I got the gambling bug. Con showed me how to count cards. It’s really not that hard, but I was good at it and I made a little money on the side. I…” She stopped and took a healthy drink coffee. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stole a glance at Annabel.
“Anyway, I got involved with Tommy Doyle in Dublin. That was the beginning of the end…”
Annabel watched once again as the inner torment flashed across Maureen’s face and Michael’s. “So, Michael, you were in the hospital because of Tommy Doyle,” Annabel stated the obvious. “What does that have to do with you and Paris?”
Maureen’s face drew dark and distant as she looked down at her empty plate, which she pushed away from her.
Michael continued for her. “I was in deep, as ya now know. I was taking the drugs I was to deliver, spending some of Tommy Doyle’s money, as well.”
Deirdre was shocked. “You were stealing from a drug lord?”
The look of shame on Michael’s face was heartbreaking. Deirdre must have seen it. She put her arm around him. “I’m sorry, Mick. That was very judgmental of me. I can’t say I understand, but I’ve been around enough people who’ve been taking that poison to know once you start, it’s so hard to stop.”
“I should have,” he said angrily, tossing the napkin on the counter.
The tension hung around them until Maureen continued. “I tried to reason with Doyle. I told him I’d pay for what Michael spent. He laughed in my face and told me how much. I was desperate. He was talking about killin’ him. I wanted Michael out, so I struck a deal with Tommy Doyle,” she said, looking at the counter.
“God, I hate him,” Michael spat out. Deirdre placed her hand on his forearm. He nodded and said nothing further.
“He sat behind his big desk, the little squint,” Maureen said. “He knew I had nerve going in there.”
“More nerve than I had. And he knew you were smart, too.”
“I know, Mick. I knew he asked around. He remembered me from when he was palling around with you when you were youngsters. He was a troublemaker back then. A little tattletale. Anyway, he knew I had a job, a good job at the Hyatt in Dublin. And he knew I liked gambling.” She shook her head. “So ya know what he says, Mick? He tells me he’s feeling generous. And he’s gonna do me a favor.”
“I bet,” Michael said.
“He had a friend. She’s French.”
Annabel groaned. “Lisa.”
Maureen hid her grin and corrected her. “Her name is Leiza Trudeau. She was staying at the hotel where I worked.”
“I remember her,” Michael said. “You and she…” He stopped and glanced at Annabel. “Never mind. Continue.”
Maureen chuckled; she kissed Annabel on the cheek. “I had a bad feeling when he started. I knew what was coming. Meet with her tonight, he says. Show her Dublin. She likes to gamble, as well, he tells me. I want her to win, Costello, and I want you to come up with ten thousand pounds in two weeks.”
“What! In two weeks. That’s impossible,” Trevor said.
Michael laughed then. “Not if you know Maureen.”
“Shut up. But he’s right. It wasn’t that hard,” Maureen said. She held up her coffee cup as Trevor made the rounds with the pot. “He didn’t care how I got it, just get it, he says.”
“That was only half of what I owed him. God, what an idiot I was.”
“Well, Michael. To Doyle, if I did this, he’d see how much I wanted you out of it.”
“What did you do then?” Annabel asked, completely intrigued.
“I met with Leiza. We…we hit it off,” she said and avoided Annabel.
“So I gather,” she said rudely. “The thought of you with that blonde really irks me.” She looked up to see Maureen smiling. “Get on with it. And you can leave out the details with the blond bombshell.”
Trevor snorted his coffee and quickly picked up a napkin. “So sorry.”
Maureen grinned. “I took her to a gambling house I frequented…”
“Conall’s?” Michael nodded, already knowing the answer.
“I made good on what Doyle said. Leiza won, not too much at first, but in the ten days, I got his lousy money.” She laughed as she shook her head. “He didn’t believe me when I told him I didn’t cheat to get it. I won that money fair and square.”
She sat there for a moment staring at her cup. Annabel watched her as her gaze darted back and forth. Instinctively, she knew she was recounting the time. Annabel said nothing; the quiet was deafening.
“That wasn’t the end of it?” Deirdre asked.
“No, it was not the end of it. To clear the debt, he wanted me to go to Paris. Leiza had a briefcase to deliver, I was to escort her and get the money. I wasn’t told what was in the case. I suppose I fooled myself into believing it wasn’t drugs. I-I did it three times. After the first time, it went so easy. Though my stomach didn’t think so. Leiza yelled at me, in French, by the way, while I heaved my guts in an alley.” She shook her head. “She’s yelling at me while I try to yell back betwee
n heaving. What a sight. Anyway, the last time, something came over me. We made the exchange like the times before and headed back to the car to leave. I took the briefcase of money. Now I had to take it to the next step and deliver the money to Doyle…”
Maureen grinned evilly at Annabel, who raised a wary eyebrow.
Michael leaned in. “You didn’t bring it to the next destination, did you?” he asked slowly.
“The first time, yes. It went easy enough, and Doyle was happy. Not that I gave a fuck,” she said rudely, then grinned apologetically at the cursing.
Suddenly, Maureen’s face grew very dark, and she got very quiet. Annabel gave her a worried look; the change in her demeanor happened so quickly.
“It was the morning I got the word from one of your drug friends, Mick. He told me you were hiding out in Galway petrified of Doyle. I drove out there and found you.”
“I was strung out on that shit…”
“The shit I helped deliver…” Her voice trailed off as she refused to look at Annabel.
“You didn’t know it was drugs,” Deirdre said.
“In the back of my mind, I knew. What else could it be?” Maureen said.
“But the last time, you didn’t.” Annabel was trying to make Maureen feel better, but she knew she couldn’t. What was done was done. And Maureen knew it.
“I begged Michael to let me take him to the hospital,” Maureen said in a dull voice. “Kevin would help. We both knew that. He’d be safe and we’d figure out a way.”
“I heard ya went to Doyle. Though I didn’t know what you were doing. Got mad at her for gettin’ in the thick of it. I wasn’t worth it.”
Maureen smiled sadly as she watched Michael. “My brother tells me he isn’t worth it. That wasn’t true, and I couldn’t let any more happen to him. Nobody comes between the Costello kids.”
Michael looked at her then, tears springing into his blue eyes. He sniffed and nodded. Tears filled Maureen’s eyes as Annabel watched her. She could imagine Maureen with her brother, vowing to protect him. Telling him he was indeed worth it to her.
“We were always together. We didn’t have it too badly…” Michael said in a small voice. “We had each other, and Kevin was always there helping us.”
Michael grinned then. “Remember when he made inspector? No more a lower garda walking the streets. An honest inspector. He was bigger than life.”
“And you adore him,” Deirdre said.
He nodded. “He gave me his old uniform. I wore that shirt all the time.” He looked at Maureen. “Do ya still have it?”
“Yeah. I have it and his old cap. It’s at my place.”
“Grand,” he whispered. He laughed then. “Did my sister tell ya about how we first met Kevin?”
“Yes, she did,” Annabel said, smiling along with him.
“And how we got our names?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“We don’t know what our real names are.”
“Costello isn’t really my name. I have no idea what my real name is. First or last.” Maureen shrugged.
“What are you saying? I thought you said Kevin found you…”
“He did. He found us alone with nothing. No one knew who we were or where we were from. He found us hiding under a box marked Costello Distilled Water.” She shrugged again, and Annabel gaped at her.
“I thought it was pretty ingenious,” Michael said logically. “Kevin’s mother’s name is Maureen. His middle name is Michael,” he said and glanced at Annabel.
“Unbelievable.” Annabel shook her head. “Distilled water.”
Michael laughed. “So back to the story. I think this is when I told you about Matt. We were trying to help each other get off Doyle’s shit list. He told me about the ledger. Tommy Doyle had killed so many people. Everybody knew it. It was like a legend. No proof, just men turning up dead. We were petrified, but like everything else, we had no proof. After that, it got a little fuzzy.”
“Then Michael started sweating and shivering. I grabbed a blanket and threw it over him, all the while, he’s rambling about the journal and how I needed to get away from Doyle now. He made me promise not to go back to him, rambling on about how I wasn’t to save him or anyone else. He made his bed. So I got him out of that rat hole and took him to our cottage. He stayed there for almost three days. I watched over him, and the next day, he looked so much better. I was about to take him to my apartment the next day. He was gone.” She gave Michael a motherly glare. “For which I could have killed him.”
Michael blushed, looking like an errant schoolboy.
“What?” Deirdre now glared at Michael.
Maureen nodded. “He left me a note and said he wanted to clear things up with a woman who had helped him. He wanted to start over with a clean slate.” She sat back, offering a superior grin.
Deirdre continued to glare at Michael. “We’ll talk about her later.”
Annabel leaned into Deirdre. “I hear ya, sister.” She offered her fist, which Deirdre tapped with her own.
“That’s the last I saw of him,” Maureen leaned closer to Michael, “and from the looks of her, I’m sure you’d still like to be lost right now.” She motioned to Deirdre; Michael frowned deeply but said nothing. “Until I got a call again from one of your druggie friends in Galway. They said you took some bad shit. I drove out there and found you, nearly unconscious. I had a hard time believing you’d do it all over again. But when drugs have you, it’s hard to break free.”
“I didn’t take anything,” he said softly.
“I know. One of them said the same thing. You didn’t take anything. Not voluntarily anyway. And that’s when I knew Doyle got to you again.”
“This is like something from a movie,” Trevor said. “What did you do? Is this where the hospital comes in?”
“Yeah. I was crazy with rage. I knew Tommy Doyle did this, but I couldn’t prove it. If I went to Kevin without the journal, it would mean nothing. I had to play the game with Doyle for a little longer. I went to Paris again… This time when I got the money, I gambled with some of it. If he put my brother in the hospital, he was going to pay one way or the other,” she said in a dead, flat voice that scared Annabel to death.
“That’s where I met you,” Maureen said to Annabel.
“This I have not heard,” Michael said, seeming to relish the story.
“It was the third and last time I’d go to Paris. The time before, I gambled with part of the money. Leiza didn’t know I was gambling with Doyle’s money. I won big, very big. I then took the drug money and handed it over, keeping the winnings. After clearing it with Doyle, we stayed in Paris for a week. I continued to gamble and continued to win. I didn’t care about anything. All I wanted was for Doyle to pay for what he’d done to Michael. This was the only way I knew how to have that happen. I sent part of the money to the hospital for your bills. I made sure they took care of you, even though he was unconscious, but soon, he was awake but very ill.” She looked at Deirdre. “Or so a compassionate nurse told me.”
“I wondered how you could afford the hospital with no insurance,” Deirdre said. Then she laughed. “So you gambled a drug dealer’s money to pay the medical expense to help Michael get off his drugs. How ironic. I love it.”
“There is justice in the world,” Trevor said, holding up his coffee cup.
“The rest I put back on the blackjack table and won. But when I was leaving, Doyle’s men caught up with me at the airport. They told me they were on to me about the gambling. I was petrified for Michael. We had a…disagreement.”
“And got stabbed,” Annabel said. “That’s where I come in…again.”
“Ya just couldn’t let her go, could ya?” Michael winked at Maureen.
Annabel held up her hand before Maureen could speak. “And do not tell me you’re sorry for kidnapping me.”
“What?” Deirdre said. “Kidnapping again? What is it with you people?”
“Because I’m not,” Annabel con
tinued. She looked at Deirdre. “Yes, this crazy woman jumped into my rental car as I was leaving Dublin Airport and tells me to stop my prattle and drive.”
“Prattle?” Michael asked.
“To continue,” Maureen said, rubbing her temple. “When I came back, I found out Matt Nolan was dead. I knew this was Doyle’s handiwork, as well. Like I said, I was petrified.”
“How did Doyle find out about the gambling?” Trevor asked.
“I think Leiza told them.”
“Why would she do that?” Annabel asked.
“Well, I went to see Con yesterday. He told me Leiza was angry with me over some American woman.”
“She was jealous? How did she know about me?”
It was Maureen’s turn to redden. “I’ll tell ya later,” she whispered. Annabel blushed to her roots and sat back.
“Why didn’t you go to Kevin?” Michael asked.
“It was a logical question. I was going to, but I have no proof yet. Well, now with this book. But we can’t decipher it.”
“But Kevin is an inspector,” Annabel said. “Surely, he can at least be aware of Doyle.”
“Oh, Annabel,” Michael said. “They are all aware of Doyle. They’ve been aware of him for ten years. They just have nothing concrete, and until we figure out that thing…” He motioned to the book on the counter. “…We really have nothin’. Do we, Maureen?”
“No, we don’t.”
They all looked at the book in silence.
“I don’t suppose it will tell us on its own,” Trevor said sadly.
Maureen picked the book up and examined it. “It already has.”
Chapter 18
“Shouldn’t we call Kevin anyway?” Michael asked.
“Probably.” Maureen glanced at Deirdre, who was talking to Annabel and Trevor, all of them huddled over the chessboard as they sat by the fire. “They look so cozy and happy, don’t they?”
Michael watched, as well. “They look like ordinary people. Like a family. Something you and I…”
“We’re a family, Mick.”
“I know. But it feels nice to be around other normal people, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. It does. So tell me how this happened with Deirdre.”
