The Celtic Cross Killer

by Keiron Cosgrave

  Dermot Riordan—the owner of Delaney’s—and his customers had only a vague recollection of the mystery man. The copious amounts of alcohol consumed that night seemingly responsible for their collective short-term memory loss. Pecarro suspected, but couldn’t prove, that Riordan had also been drunk that night. The artist’s impression of the killer was of an indistinct and generic face. The Celtic cross cutting was held back from the press. Copycats, Pecarro didn’t need.

  * * *

  ‘Pecarro, I’m reassigning you and Casey, too,’ said Chief Johnson, four months to the day since the Costa murder. ‘You’ve spent far too long disappearing up your own ass on the Costa murder. Narcotics need support. The Puerto Ricans are expanding into Borough Park. Three shootings in three days is unacceptable. I’m seconding Casey to the fifth. He’s off the case, too.’ The Chief spoke without emotion, tapped a pencil on a desk protector and avoided eye contact. ‘I’m still considering which cases you’ll be working on. That all right?’

  Pecarro glowered. ‘Fine by me, boss, fine by me…’

  Leaving the Chief’s office, Pecarro bit hard on his anger. One thought resonated around his brain. His mother’s words drilled into him as a child.

  “When anger rises, Antonio, draw breath. Take a moment. Think of the consequences.”

  35

  Michael Casey’s brother Sean was two years younger. Sean thought of himself as the black sheep of the family. Michael thought him the black sheep, too.

  Casey dialled Sean’s cell phone. The ringtone echoed down the line.

  The last time Casey had dropped in on his brother at home unannounced it had left an enduring memory. How could anyone, let alone his own brother live like that? How could two brothers be so different?

  Standing six-foot three inches tall, Sean had inherited his father’s natural good looks: blue eyed with an angular jaw, thin lips, aquiline nose and a high hairline exposing a broad forehead. Sean had also inherited his father’s love of the hard stuff—the dreaded drink. In contrast, Michael got his looks from his mother’s side. His, was a round fair-skinned face with a thin mop of receding mousey hair limp across a wrinkled forehead. Shorter by four inches, Michael was more imp than Adonis.

  The phone line connected. A voice barked. ‘Sean Casey.’

  ‘Sean, it’s Michael, your favourite brother.’

  ‘Funny. Only brother.’

  ‘Yeah, your only brother… How are you? You took a while to answer,’ said Michael. It had taken Sean two days to answer Michael’s calls.

  ‘Busy.’

  ‘That’s a first.’

  ‘Smart ass.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You know how it is, bro… I’ve been playing out a lot,’ said Sean.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Me, I’m too busy working for such frivolity.’

  ‘You always were the conscientious type. You’re a saint.’

  After a long beat Michael said, ‘So … you frequenting any particular bars?’

  Half a minute of silence.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Not really, no. I go with the flow. I’ve not seen you once. You chained to the kitchen sink or something?’ said Sean.

  ‘Nope. I’m selective where I drink,’ said Michael. The silence on the line only amplified the distance between the brothers.

  ‘Anyhow … the reason for my call…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Can we meet? We need to talk about, Ma. I’m worried about her.’

  ‘Sounds serious. Is everything okay?’

  ‘She’s okay … for now. Only … I think we should catch up. Get things in order. When are you available?’

  ‘One minute … I’ll go check my social calendar.’

  ‘Don’t piss about, Sean. I haven’t got the time. I need to be somewhere.’

  ‘How about we go for a drink?’

  ‘Okay. Where and when?’

  ‘There’s a new place just opened up on the corner of 9th Street and 4th - Aphrodite’s Table Dance Club. Usually, it’s a little out of my price range. Since you’ll be picking up the tab,’ said Sean, in a faux Irish brogue, ‘then, why the hell not? I can make tonight. Eight thirty, okay?’

  ‘Eight thirty is good. Look … I’ve got to go. I’ll see you there. Aphrodite’s, tonight at eight thirty. Get there on time. And don’t, whatever you do, come drunk.’

  36

  Sean arrived at Aphrodite’s an hour early. He’d planned it that way. Hoped the ten dollar admission would be the entirety of his evening’s expenditure.

  Open for only two months, Aphrodite’s had opened to a fanfare of protest from local feminist, parent and residents groups. Located just two blocks from Brooklyn’s largest junior high school and opposite a private kindergarten, the middle-class residents of Park Slope had been appalled by the failure of New York City Council to prevent another establishment of its type opening.

  Their vociferous campaign of protest in the media and press—whilst vocal—had proved ineffective. The protest leaders suspected that the developer had bribed the head of the planning department with cash. Either that, or he’d received complimentary lifetime membership. Proving such accusations was risky. The developers of the club—a Bahamas-based company—had successfully sued for libel against the ringleaders of a similar protest group in Boston. There, the ringleaders faced financial ruin. Nothing could be proved. Aphrodite’s was opened on December 1st by world famous porn star, Babe Beaver. Aphrodite’s was here to stay.

  Inside, four raised podiums faced a sunken bar. Each podium accommodated ten customers. The central bar seated thirty. Semi-circular curtained booths built against the perimeter walls gave privacy for “one-on-one” paid dances.

  It was a quiet night. A boisterous group of four male colleagues sat around a podium. A busty blonde in a gold lame bikini gyrated above them.

  Sean swaggered in through the door and halted. Scanned the room. Ambled over to the bar. Two female bartenders in skin-tight red PVC cat suits dusted and refilled optics. Sean cleared his throat. Settled onto a stool. A bartender came over. She moved like a jaguar.

  ‘A beer, honey. Make it a Bud,’ said Sean.

  A gleaming smile and a nod.

  ‘Could I start a tab, honey? Name of Casey?’

  ‘Sure can sweetie.’ Another bright smile made over a shoulder. Swaying hips. ‘My name is Anna. I’ll be your hostess, tonight.’

  For the next hour and a quarter Sean Casey drank six bottles of beer, including one lined up for his brother. Michael was late. As the minutes passed, Sean became increasingly anxious. Who would pick up the tab if Michael didn’t show?

  Eventually the door swung open, Michael Casey appeared in the opening. Waved. Walked over to the bar.

  The pair fist bumped.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, bro. It was gone eight before I left the goddamn precinct. I’m investigating a real ball-breaker,’ said Michael, face flushed hearty red.

  Sean shrugged. Swigged beer. ‘No worries. I’m just glad you made it. I was getting a little worried,’ Sean said, dragging out a stool, gesturing for Michael to sit. ‘Sit down,’ said Sean, bloodshot eyes transfixed by the shapely dancer swaying just feet away. ‘Chill.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Anna. Two more Buds when you get a minute,’ said Sean, facing Michael. ‘Bud, okay?’

  ‘Just peachy. Sorry, again for being late.’

  ‘I told you … no worries. Don’t spend all night apologising. It’s annoying.’

  ‘I won’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Stop that.’

  ‘I know. Sorry…’

  Anna passed two bottles over the bar.

  ‘Let’s make a toast.’

  ‘Okay. Who to?’

  ‘To you and me. To all brothers drinking in bars and watching beautiful young women in states of undress.’

  37

  The Casey brothers were raised as Catholics. Their parents—mother Maeve and disciplinarian father, Thoma
s—worked hard to rear, ‘good Catholic boys.’ They hoped to raise god-fearing men. Men who would live their lives in contrite abstention with humility. Lives lived in fear of eternal damnation of the grave sinner: within a regime of confession, reconciliation and absolution of the mortal soul cleansed by Catholicism.

  For most of the boys’ childhood, the family had lived in a ground floor, two-bed apartment on Brooklyn’s East Side. It was a tough area caught in an interminable cycle of poverty. The slow decline of the docks was responsible. Work was difficult to come by. Maeve had tried to make life tolerable by holding down several jobs. However, it was their father’s decline that came to define the family Casey.

  Thomas was the only son of Mary O’Shea and Dara Casey. Born in 1925, four periods defined his life: a 1930s depression era childhood; a period of distinguished military service in the Marine Corps in Europe during World War II; a stable period of employment afforded by the affluence of the ’50s and early ’60s, and following redundancy, his sad decline. Sean and Michael knew little about their father’s early life and wartime adventures. However, they had lived and breathed Thomas’s tragic decline into alcoholism. Thomas died from cirrhosis of the liver aged fifty-five in 1980.

  Thomas’s drinking problem had started when he was first laid off following the closure of the Navy dockyard on 5th Quay in 1963. Unemployment had defined and destroyed his future. He never recovered from enforced idleness and the corrosive effects of having too much time on his hands.

  Thereafter, work had been difficult to find, short term in nature, poorly paid and unskilled. Like many, Thomas spent his days drinking with his buddies at the popular Irish Affiliates Club. Thomas would be merrily drunk by lunchtime and in a legless stupor by mid-afternoon. A friend with a cab would bring him home. The brother’s Casey would carry their incoherent, drunken father, from the cab into the apartment block in broad daylight, with the entire neighbourhood watching the unedifying spectacle.

  That hot summer afternoon in 1967 was no different.

  ‘You lift his legs. I’ll grab his arms. You got him?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Good. Lift on three,’ said Michael, a fresh-faced youth of seventeen to brother, Sean, a muscular fifteen-year-old. Together, they could just about lift their father. ‘Okay. One, two, three, now lift!’ exclaimed Michael, gasping in the thin summer air, sweat coursing down his forehead into his eyes.

  The cab driver marched over. ‘Who’s paying?’

  ‘There’s money in my pocket. Take what you need,’ said Michael, gasping. ‘Leave me the change. Can’t you see … we’ve got our hands full?’

  ‘I can that.’

  The cab driver took the fare, pushed the change deep into Michael’s trouser pocket. Doffed his flat cap. ‘Good day to you both. Be careful with your, Da. Despite appearances, he’s a good man,’ said the cab driver leaving the brothers balancing the prone body of their father just inches above the sidewalk.

  ‘Get the eejit inside,’ said Michael. ‘This is embarrassing.’

  Thomas raised half an eyelid. A milk-grey bloodshot eye batted against the brightness.

  ‘I heard that … wee gob shite. Don’t think I didn’t. You’re doing a grand job, boys. Get me inside, there’s something I want to say. It won’t wait any longer. It’s a burden I’ve been carrying for far too long, so it is. Your Ma forbade me from saying anything. It’s time you knew.’

  With a gentle sigh and a resigned burp, Thomas lost consciousness.

  The boys heaved their father up the narrow staircase, halted halfway up to catch breath. Arriving at the top landing they staggered left, Sean kicked open the bedroom door and with a final concerted effort, the pair dumped their father onto the bed.

  Thomas’s eyelids flickered open. Yawned. He raised up on an elbow, eyes squinting and struggling against the gloom. Propped on his side, he turned to his two sons standing over him. The sons he loved.

  After a tortured bronchial cough Thomas said, ‘Michael, be a good boy and fetch coffee. When you’re done, come back upstairs. I want to tell you both something. It’s important.’

  Thomas struggled to release himself from his shabby tweed jacket.

  Sean bent in. ‘One second, Da, I’ll help,’ said Sean.

  ‘You’re a good boy Sean … you’re a good boy…’

  38

  Michael made his father coffee at the sink, stood and contemplated what his father had to say. What trusted secret he felt the need to divulge? Would his confession—the shorthand of his father’s futile existence—cause more heartache? Was their mother leaving? Or, hoping beyond hope, had they come into money? Or, would it be his usual half-baked idea to return to Ireland? To the Motherland? That was a regular muse when he was drunk. Michael would tell him straight if it was. Count me out! I’m old and wise enough to decide, he said to himself. Role-playing the possibility. Imagining his father’s violent response.

  Michael heard the staircase creak. A minute later, the flush of the downstairs toilet. His father’s baying voice boomed, ‘Are you two coming, or what?’

  ‘We’re coming. Hold your ponies,’ said Sean adding under his breath. ‘You drunken son of a bitch.’

  The two brothers met at the bottom of the stairs. Sean let Michael go first.

  ‘Don’t rise to the bastard,’ said Michael.

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Good. Make sure you don’t.’

  They entered the bedroom and found their father propped against a stack of pillows.

  ‘Take a seat, boys. Sit yourselves down. I need to tell you two something. Get it off my chest. Now that you’re old enough it’s time you knew,’ said Thomas, reaching for the coffee.

  Michael and Sean sat either side of their father.

  ‘What’s this about, Da?’ said Sean.

  ‘Family, Sean, family…’ He stalled. Sipped coffee. Settled the mug on the bedside cabinet. Folded his hands across his lap. Looked to his sons in turn. ‘Do you remember your mother telling you how your grandfather on her side had a brother and how he died when he was young?’

  The brothers nodded.

  ‘Your Ma told you he died from smallpox. I can’t remember exactly the yarn she spun. Anyway, that’s hardly the point… The point is your grandfather didn’t have one brother, he had two. Their names were Tom and Connor.’ Thomas hesitated. Gulped tar-like black, restorative coffee. ‘The thing is … they died at the same time…’ Thomas fell silent, weighed the gravity of his words.

  ‘Come on, Da, spit it out. We’ve things to do,’ said Michael.

  ‘Okay, have it your way. Spic mobsters murdered your grandfather’s brothers in cold blood,’ said Thomas, scanning the faces of his sons, gauging their reactions.

  ‘That’s blarney,’ said Sean.

  ‘I only wish it were, Sean. But I’m afraid it’s as real as the drunken old bastard you see laid in this bed before you, so it is.’

  Thomas recounted—as best he understood it—the cold-blooded slaying of the O’Shea brothers in an illegal basement distillery on a stormy winter night in 1930.

  ‘So there you have it. You know as much as I do.’

  39

  Sean sat back and lit a cigarette. Inhaled a long draw. Exhaled. Said, ‘Do you remember how Ma had taken it?’

  ‘Course, I do. How could I forget?’

  ‘When she found out that he’d told us? How it had been the last straw? It tore her apart. At first she’d been furious. Then, when the anger subsided, she became cold. Morose. Detached. Christ’s sake she even gave you and me the cold shoulder. She couldn’t bring herself to love him after that. She never said it, but something inside her died. She was a husk. There was nothing left.’

  Michael directed his gaze to his beer. Watched bubbles rising towards the underside of the foaming head. Just like Da, Sean couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it go. Whenever they met for a drink he’d always raise the subject. That balmy evening in 1967 was fixed inside his head, like the anchor of an ocean lin
er on the seabed.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Sean, let it go! Why live in the past? It’s pointless. Move on. Ma’s happy enough now, isn’t she?’ implored Michael.

  ‘It’s okay you saying that, but when you think about it in the cold light of day, those murders, they destroyed Da. In doing so they destroyed the family - our family… If only they’d never happened,’ said Sean, gulping beer. ‘Two more beers, Anna, darling. We need another drink.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Sean, I’ve only just got this one,’ Michael objected.

  ‘I’m not having that. You’re a long time dead.’

  Michael shook his head, sucked and blew a long breath and resigned himself to a thick head in the morning.

  ‘To hell with it … go on then… You do know you’re a madman? I’ll have one more for the road. One more, you hear? No more.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Sean, slapping his brother on the back.

  Michael Casey knew his brother was an asshole, but found himself drawn to their anarchical nights of heavy drinking where they’d reminisce, bounce the bullshit and share the craic. Such nights with Sean provided Michael with an antidote to the increasing conformity and tedium of police work and his faux home life. Drinking with Sean was a buzz.

  ‘She’s only got eyes for me, bro,’ said Sean with a wink, as the petite lap dancer he’d been eyeing up for the past half-hour, pointed towards a perimeter booth.

  ‘I’ll be back in fifteen. Watch my drink,’ said Sean swinging from the barstool.

  Ten minutes later, Michael smirked as Sean clambered onto the barstool beside him.

  ‘Enjoy that?’

  ‘You bet I did. She’s a honey. What I wouldn’t do to…’

  Michael interjected with a raised palm. ‘Eh, enough already… I get the picture. Okay?’

  ‘Okay. You know you would, too.’