“I guess.”
“Or ten? Was it closer to five or ten?”
“Really, Superintendent,” the father objected, placing both palms on the table, “is this quite necessary?”
O’Shaughnessy ignored him. “You must have signed for it, since you can’t remember.”
The son wanted to glance at his father, but he kept his eyes on the machine. “Yes—I signed.”
The father’s eyes darted away, down to the side and at the floor.
“You signed the service slip?” O’Shaughnessy moved toward the stenographer.
“Yes.”
“And the work was extensive?”
“No, no—just an adjustment.” He was irked now. “That’s why I took it there and not to the garage I bought it at.”
“Which is?”
“Harold’s Cross Garage.”
O’Shaughnessy held out his large hand, and the stenographer pulled the sheets of paper from the machine.
“Would you sign this statement, Mister Murray?”
The young man eyed the sheets, the four copies of which O’Shaughnessy began collating.
“When it’s typed up, of course,” the father said, standing. “When it’s typed up and readable and we recollect it’s what was said, then well and good, we’ll sign. But not that stuff, Liam. No sir, not like that.”
“Then would you mind waiting? We’ll have it typed up right now.”
“Oh, no—you’ve kept us waiting long enough as it is. We have business, big business, Superintendent, and I can’t allow you to keep Sean from it.”
“Then you won’t mind returning at a later day, say, Monday morning. By then we’ll have it just as it was spoken, neat and in English. And I’ll have additional questions to put, of that I’m sure.”
The son looked away.
“Monday morning? You must be joking.”
O’Shaughnessy only stared at the father.
The hand moved over the upper lip, the harried eyes flashed. “Please try to understand, Liam. We’re not…civil servants. We’re businessmen and the Horse Show—why, we’ve worked all year for it. It’s more than just important to us, it’s vital. The auctions, the prizes, the competitions.”
Still O’Shaughnessy said nothing.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to call Peter on this. And Commissioner Farrell. It’s…extraordinary. Harassment—that’s what it constitutes. Harassment.”
O’Shaughnessy only moved to the door, which he opened.
The square of buildings had caught the heat and the courtyard was an oven. The lines of the shiny black Mercedes were blurry and difficult to look at. The chauffeur was standing by an open rear door.
O’Shaughnessy turned to Murray. “No hard feelings, sir. I’m only earning my keep.”
Murray’s facial features were suddenly transformed. “Why, of course. Of course.” He pumped O’Shaughnessy’s arm, his son behind him. Sweat seemed to pop from his forehead and upper lip, and his skin was the texture of tallow wax. O’Shaughnessy wondered if he was ill and not just from booze alone. “And I mine—as a counsellor, you understand. Strictly as a counsellor. You can’t be too careful. I’ve learned that.” Murray held O’Shaughnessy’s gaze. He was long used to lying.
O’Shaughnessy began walking him down to the car. “The Bechel-Gore thing. Do you know we’re investigating that again?” It was a question McGarr asked him to put to Murray, one of those on the slip of paper Greaves had handed him earlier.
“A sorry situation,” said Murray.
“Tragic. Such a vital man. Do you see much of him?”
“Unfortunately, too much.” Murray began chuckling. “The tragedy has only made him more…aggressive, channeled his efforts. He’s a fierce competitor, Liam, make no mistake about that. Ruthless, utterly ruthless.
“But you know,” he turned to O’Shaughnessy, “I don’t think my life would be as…bracing without him, if you know what I mean.”
O’Shaughnessy only nodded and looked out over the shimmering cobblestones toward the lemon-yellow convertible. Ward was standing by it, talking to the girl. The echo of the door closing pinged around the brick and masonry of the courtyard.
“And James Joseph Keegan. Do you see much of him?”
“Who?”
“Keegan. J. J. Jimmy-Joe. Leenane. He’s a man with a certain interest in horses.”
“Keegan, Keegan.” Murray’s brow was suddenly furrowed, the bushy eyebrows knitted. And O’Shaughnessy could smell him now—the stale, fruity but astringent odor of an alcoholic.
“Horses, you say?”
“Probably, but more definitely donkeys. Small man—sallow, cloth cap. Sixty-five. Seventy.”
“No—can’t say that I have. Should I keep an eye out for him?”
“If you would, if you would, sir. Peter and I would appreciate it.”
“Until Monday, then?”
Murray bent to ease his heavy body into the back seat of the limousine and he either coughed or cried out in pain. “The old bones. They’re not what they used to be.”
“I know the feeling, sir,” O’Shaughnessy said, but the look on the man’s face was one of real torment and he reached for the console attached to the back of the front seat. A lid snapped down to reveal a small bar.
“Can I offer you—?” There was a ruptured vein in the corner of Murray’s left eye that was shaped like a corkscrew. It seemed to be skewered right down into his eyeball.
“Not while on duty, thank you.”
“Then I’ll close the door. The air conditioning, you know.”
“Monday.”
“Well—” Murray’s hand was shaky on the bottle, “—early then. Monday’s a busy day. For us.”
“As early as you like.”
The chauffeur closed the door.
Already the lemon-yellow convertible was out the gate, leaving Ward standing in the glare, but O’Shaughnessy didn’t wait for him. He had business of his own, at Ballsbridge Motors. If he hurried he could get to the service manager when he knocked off for lunch.
Again an oiled lock. Under the pressure of McGarr’s double pick, the dead bolt of the front door to the Caughey apartment rolled over like a corpse.
Before stepping into the cool lower hall, McGarr glanced down the street toward the corner and caught sight of two uniformed Gardai. Each had taken a different side of the street and were advising householders that the neighborhood was being evacuated. It would make the other job—that of canvassing the residents about the report of a detective having visited the Caughey apartment yesterday afternoon—all the easier, once they got them all together. Nobody could part a curtain on the second floor, peek down, and pretend he wasn’t home.
McGarr smelled wax, years of it, and carpet-cleaning fluid of the sort that was put on with a brush from a bucket of water and then scrubbed—hard, laborious work. And the staircase was long—seventeen steps, two of which creaked audibly and wanted nails. No man here, they said to McGarr; he wondered if they could be heard in the apartment below. Another thing to check.
Wallpaper of Grecian urns, highly embellished and of a gold color on a beige background, new and expensive.
A second door at the top of the stairs, a large pane of plate glass, lace curtains, below which he could only see the gleam of another polished floor—the hallway leading to the interior rooms of the large apartment and the kitchen beyond.
The door was made of oak with tapered panels and little crenellations on the trim around the window. He bent and sniffed the lock—more of the same oil. She had been careful, painstaking, and McGarr concluded she herself had oiled the padlock on the garage. Whoever had booby-trapped the car would not have taken such care with the oil can only to have left behind the screwdriver and the length of wire. And there were fingerprints on the handle and shaft of the tool as well. Careless. Not at all like the old woman.
New pins of shiny brass in the hinges, McGarr noted, as he closed the door. The Caugheys had had it added to the
premises when they moved in, and, now that he came to think of it, the door had the look of a country item, the sort of ostentatiously elegant touch that some farmers with a bit of money to burn would lavish on the front doors of their cottages. The doors seemed ludicrous, of course, but one look and you could tell they cost a pretty penny, that nothing was too good for that family, humble as they were. McGarr rapped the glass—plate, all right. And nice joining work. It closed with a solid, reassuring clump.
He turned to the desk, a drop-top antique that stood near the piano where the light from the tall bay windows flooded the plants, the parquet floor, the Oriental rug. The latter was burgundy with dark green-and-gold patterns—of a knight on a charger, castles and fortifications, a battle scene with lances locked and reserves in tight rows behind—and it had been well used, the rug, but not worn. Quality stuff and tasteful too, even if graphic. He wondered if the old woman had selected everything. His eyes strayed to the tattered Morris chair where they had found her.
He unlocked the desk and everything was neat inside. He found mainly bills from expensive women’s clothiers, two recently arrived and outstanding; rent receipts (sixty-five pounds, all inclusive); a piano tuner’s charges—but no letters from relatives or friends, not even a postcard. McGarr turned and considered the framed and glassed photo portraits on the table near the piano. Why hadn’t she received anything from any of them? Could they all be dead or forgotten? Certainly, in spite of all the…pretensions, the dead woman had been very Irish.
He went through the drawers, looking for stationery, the sort in pastel colors with or without Margaret Kathleen Caughey’s name (her daughter, her namesake, although in Irish) engraved or printed on top, the sort that was sent out as a personal note, a friendly, chatty letter. None. Not a single sheet of paper. Just business envelopes that were prestamped and had been bought at the post office, a pad of cheap, lined paper, a little Hermes Rocket typewriter that was fitted neatly into the corner and had French punctuation keys and had been bought at a certain shop in Paris. Pencils—a mechanical model in fourteen-carat gold. Pens—again only one, a Parker that was modern in design and looked like it belonged in the pocket of an airline pilot.
But where were all the details of years of living, of having to communicate with this one and that, of having to mail envelopes and packets, of needing staples and clips or labels or—. Even the ribbon in the typewriter was new.
He closed the desk and thought of the phrase he’d used in his preliminary report of the night before, “…the apartment must be examined in greater detail to more fully assemble a picture of the victim, her involvements, her family, her circle of acquaintances and friends.”
And she had them, McGarr was sure. Why else the pictures?
He lifted the seat of the piano bench. Nothing but sheet music and difficult stuff, pages of complexities of sharps and flats and rapid transitions. He closed the lid.
What now? Basic signs of life, things that were impossible to conceal—food, clothing, toiletries.
McGarr stepped back across the carpet, past the mantel and the eight-day clock with the porcelain face and the golden ballerina who was pirouetting first one way and then the other, past the Morris chair toward the hallway and the kitchen beyond.
Out in the alley he could hear the men from the bomb squad and the Technical Bureau conferring. Van doors were being slammed; Gardai—now at least several squads of them—were blocking off the streets and laneways with sawhorses. People were complaining, dogs barking at the intruders in the dark-blue uniforms.
But here in the Caughey apartment all seemed in place, tranquil, and—was it cool; yes—McGarr could hear the dull drone of a cooling unit in an air conditioner and, pausing in the shadowed hallway, he listened for the location of the sound.
Opening the door to a bedroom, a bank of cold air fell on him, smelling of sweet, spicy perfume. The windows of the room were curtained and draped and, unlike the rest of the house, the room was cluttered. The bed was unmade. Already the effects of the mother’s death were being felt, but he’d save this room for later. At the moment McGarr was concerned with the victim.
The fridge was still well stocked. McGarr imagined that the girl probably hadn’t been able to think of eating since the mother’s death.
Cheeses—but not the crumbly orange Irish cheddar or the processed Galtee varieties, but brie and camembert and port du salut and some unusual brown sort from Norway made of goat’s milk and tasting of the udder. Cottage cheese. A tall chocolate layer cake with chocolate icing. Yogurt. Skimmed milk. Where, he wondered, had they found that here in Ireland? “Specially Prepared For Finlay’s Select Customers.” They were that all right. With distaste, McGarr slid the bottle back into the fridge. It was bluish and frothy, like soapy dishwater. McGarr preferred his milk with a thick collar of cream around the top…when he drank milk.
A bottle of Medoc from Pauillac, nothing expensive, but it had a full, burnt-ruby color when McGarr poured some into a wine glass and the characteristic tartness that he greatly admired. It was a shame that it was chilled and corked, and he left it on the kitchen table, the cork by its side—for future reference.
Now then—he raised the glass to his lips; it was full-bodied but smooth, and its bouquet, while slight, was pleasant—what had the mother eaten? She was plump. Certainly she hadn’t lived on air, and all the fresh fruit and vegetables he could see under the glass in the hydrator seemed more like the daughter’s fare.
He stooped and looked into the shelves of the large refrigerator, really too big for two people, and saw several covered pots: simmered calves’ hearts with slices of onion, some bacon, and a bay leaf for flavor; a stew—he dipped his finger into it and tasted—beef and without any wine or condiments, just a plain dish with carrots, onion, potatoes, and stock. Some ham slices wrapped in waxed paper. McGarr slid several into his mouth, decided the daughter would only end up throwing the rest away, and so finished them off, tossing the paper in the garbage bin, which he sorted through.
Nothing unusual there either.
The cupboard shelves in the large, well-lit pantry also held two types of things: specialty items like smoked baby clams, tins of salmon, boxes of wild rice, Italian cookies from Perugia, Drosti’s chocolate, bottles of aqua minerale, an espresso maker; and then cans of tomatoes, peas, beans, corn. Daughter and mother. What a difference.
And in the bedrooms too.
The daughter’s: posters of her concert performances framed and under glass; and pictures of horses, her in the saddle; others with roses in her arms, standing on brilliantly lit stages, orchestras behind her, bowing in one so that the bodice of her dress hung loose and much of her breasts were visible.
Even as a youngster, McGarr concluded, she had been…fetching, and whether out in green rocky fields with her hair braided and pinned to the back of her head or in a white dress with some older mustachioed man holding her hand in—was it Rome? yes, St. Peter’s, the Vatican; she had to squint because of the sunlight—she looked worldly and knowledgeable. Not a child. No, never really a child. But still…childlike.
And all the rouges, emolients, unguents, powders, eye-shadow sticks, lipsticks, fingernail polishes, vials of perfume and such that lined the top of her dressing table; and the black flimsy things—garters, negligees, a kind of chemise and housecoat of embroidered silk that McGarr had only seen once in a movie, and that portraying the life and passions of a courtesan—in the drawers of her chifforobe, her deep closet, and her armoire all bespoke a certain sophistication.
McGarr found letters in French and Italian, one in Spanish, another in German which somebody had translated onto another sheet. It was about one of her performances—all technical and impersonal and erudite.
But still, the look and feel and smell of the bedroom was not girlish by any means. Had McGarr not known of the mother’s death, he would have bet two people had spent a strenuous, sleepless night in the rumpled bed, the sheets of which were silver satin.
The mother’s: a picture of Jesus and His Sacred Heart over the mantel, His hand raised gracefully, His face long and gaunt with a thin, shapely beard; a white robe with a red collar to match the color of the heart. And those haunting eyes.
McGarr turned away from the portrait, having seen it thousands of times before, having been frightened and shocked by it even from his first remembrance—God showing His heart. It was…macabre, savage, part of the terror that had been his first impression of the religion he called his own but had not practiced for many years.
The mother’s closet: black, dark gray, brown, and navy blue dresses, all nearly ankle length. Strong, serviceable shoes in only two or three styles. Heavy winter coats of good quality, but again plain. Only one summer dress made of some thin, lilac-colored material with a green leaf pattern—willows—running through it.
Hats: little woven bonnets or pillbox caps representing years of changing styles were on the top shelf with a few broad-brimmed summer types; and she had been soft on purses too. McGarr fished through every one, and what struck him was the absolute care that had been taken to purge each one of every scrap of—was it evidence? yes, in a way—that the items had had an owner who had an identity. Not a bobby pin or a toothpick or a hanky was left. He wondered if the liners had been pulled out and smacked clean of lint. No, there was lint, but evidence was the key word.
Keeping it in mind, McGarr carefully checked the rest of the bedroom, the dining room, the back entry, kitchen cabinets, pots, lid drawers, the sideboard and the silver, but he found no…evidence that would help him put together a picture of M. K. Caughey, the elder.
Where were their personal documents? Passports, since they had traveled; birth certificates, since they had required those for passports; and financial records like deposit slips, bank- or check books, since everything McGarr had seen so far had cost money and it hadn’t just appeared whenever the daughter had wanted a flimsy, see-through blouse from some fancy shop. And baptismal records, Sunday offering cards, school reports, other photographs than the ones on the table. In a safe deposit box? Then where was the record of that kept? Had the killer come for that?
The Death of an Irish Tradition Page 7
