“How would we know he’s acting within his authority, Malcolm?” said Cooney with a smug smile. “The trust is sealed. We’ve never seen it.”
“Indeed it is. Good day.”
“One minute,” I said. “I need to clear the air on a very troublesome problem. Someone has been making phone calls to my home, to my wife. Calling at all hours and then hanging up. I don’t know where they’re coming from. Yet. But if I find they’re coming from someone in this room, I’m going to make damn sure that person will have a hard time ever dialing a telephone in the future. And I want to let you all know, I’m not leaving. Threaten all you want, I’m staying. It’s one thing to slash my tires, another to mess up my room, but when you threaten my wife, you’ve crossed my line.”
“No one in here is phoning your damn house, Liam,” Conor said. “Get off your horse. But maybe if you went home where you belong, the calls would stop.”
That was enough. It was close enough to an admission. I started around the corner of the table, but O’Neill grabbed my arm. “Not the time or the place. Let’s go.”
“Adios until tomorrow,” Cooney said and winked at Conor.
O’Neill, Megan and I left the room. Deirdre and Eamon were walking slowly down the hall, their arms around each other. Two old warriors. They did not deserve the disrespect.
“C’mon, I’ll drive you home.” They nodded and we started walking toward the car.
“Liam,” Charles called. “Do you have a moment?”
I opened the car for Deirdre and Eamon, and walked over to talk to Charles.
“Janie told me about those pictures,” he said. “The ones of the Walker house. What do you make of that?”
“I don’t really know, Charles. It seems as though someone wants us to think that Fergus’s death was a revenge killing, doesn’t it?”
“It does indeed. Eamon said he got one in his mailbox. Just like Fergus. You know, during the Troubles these kinds of photos were a murderer’s calling card. It meant the recipient was marked for death.”
“I’ve heard that, but this isn’t the Troubles anymore and I don’t buy into that crap. What sense does it make? If it’s revenge, why not just kill him and be done with it? Like Uncle Eamon says, tit for tat. Why warn him and alert him to the threat?”
“Because serial killers take a ghoulish pleasure in announcing their plans, torturing their victims with fear before they kill them. Eamon thinks he’s marked for death and I do too. His life is in danger and I’d like to help if I can. I know a number of security companies. I can talk to them about placing a guard at the house.”
“I’ll let Deirdre and Eamon know.”
“I’ll help in any way I can,” he said.
I nodded. “I’m sure that would be gratefully appreciated. I’ll tell Inspector McLaughlin.”
“I’d just as soon work with you, Liam.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let me know if you learn anything.” I shook his hand and got into the car.
* * *
NOTHING MUCH WAS SAID between the three of us on the fifteen-minute ride to Deirdre’s house. We stood at the door for a moment while she fumbled for her key.
“Will you be okay?” I said.
She nodded. Her face was flushed, her eyes were red. I felt so badly for her. “Talk to me, Aunt Deirdre.”
She swallowed hard. “It’s all hanging by a thread, Liam.”
“Do you want me to come in for a while?”
She shook her head. “Eamon’s here. And Fergus is always waiting for me. I need to be with him.”
I didn’t like that answer. “Aunt Deirdre, I know right now your grief seems overwhelming, but Uncle Fergus would want you to be strong. He wouldn’t want you to do anything crazy. He’d want you to carry on.”
She waived me off. “I’m not going to kill myself, Liam. I’m going to go inside, mix up a little tea and have my conversations with Fergus, like I always do, because he’s there for me. He’s sitting in every room in this house. He’s everywhere I look. Now leave me be. Give me my time to grieve.”
I smiled and gave her a strong hug. I loved that woman. “I’m sorry, I’m just worried about you.”
She smiled back. “Back at that slimy lawyer’s office, sitting in that room, all anyone cared about was how much they were going to get and how quickly they could get it. They’re just a bunch of bloody harpies. All I could think about was my man was gone and I’ll never see him again. I don’t give a damn about any property. I just want my Fergus back. But I’ll get through it. Don’t worry about me.”
I gave her another hug. Truth was, I could have stood there hugging her for an hour, and I’d have been the better for it. “You take care,” I said. “Call me anytime.”
I started to leave when she said, “What Conor said about Annie? It’s not true, not one word of it. I know for a fact.”
“It doesn’t matter, Aunt Deirdre. It’s ancient history, from another lifetime.”
FOURTEEN
AFTER I LEFT DEIRDRE, I got a call from Megan. She said she had a couple of matters that demanded her attention, but she wanted to get together later. I told her I’d come by after lunch. The morning’s turmoil had unsettled me and I needed to take a long run to clear my head. I slipped on my shorts and shoes and headed north from Antrim through familiar territory—little country hamlets, old churches, cute little homes with thatched roofs and well-tended flower gardens—the Northern Irish countryside. The afternoon was warm and I felt like I was sweating my tensions away.
As I passed Chapeltown Road, I saw the Hillside Primary School and I had to stop. I wondered if she still worked there. Classes were in session, I could see through the windows. If I entered the school and turned down the left hallway, would I see her in Room 112 and would she be standing at the blackboard? If I peeked in the door, would she wink at me and give me the sign to wait until her lesson was finished? I shook those memories from my consciousness. I didn’t need to know. It took me many months to erase those feelings after I left in 1999. Ancient history, from another lifetime. The book is closed. I resumed my run.
Five miles out and five miles back and I felt like a new man. Of course, it was only a temporary reprieve. Upon my return to the hotel, my cell phone buzzed.
“Where have you been all day?” Megan asked.
“Taking in the pleasantries. Or as you locals like to say, ‘Out for a constitutional.’”
“I thought you were going to come over? We’ve uncovered some interesting information.”
“I need to shower first,” I said, still breathing hard.
“We thank you for that.”
* * *
I FOUND MEGAN SITTING with McLaughlin in the inspector’s office. “What’s up?” I said.
“Dooley’s been looking into your vendetta theory,” McLaughlin said. “Reemergence of the Troubles. Truthfully, I never gave much credence to it, but it’s starting to grow on me. I’ll let her tell you.”
She opened her notebook to show me a chart she had drawn. It looked like a family tree. “Archie Walker, the alleged shooter of little Molly Taggart, lived at 45 Spiers Place in Belfast’s Lower Shankill neighborhood. The redbrick house, the one in the picture found in Fergus’s and Eamon’s mailboxes, still has the number forty-five on the front façade. It was home to Archie, his wife and three children. Archie also had three brothers: Thomas, Edward and Geoffrey.”
“That’s what Eamon told us.”
“And Eamon was correct, as far as he went. So I’ve spent a little time this afternoon looking into the Walker family. News archives confirm that Walker’s house was firebombed. The story is that Archie, his wife and three children were killed in the explosion. It was the middle of a school day, but Mrs. Walker and the children were unexpectedly at home. There are five death certificates issued by the Belfast coroner’s office.
“Now on to his three brothers. Like Archie, they were all affiliated one way or another with the Shankill Butchers. As Eamon told you, Geoffrey
was killed in 1977 by the IRA. Edward was killed in 1982 and we won’t bother going into the circumstances. Eamon pretty much told us all we need to know. After the bloody battle between the Walkers and the Taggarts in 1974, the third brother, Thomas, disappeared. He didn’t resurface until 1978 when he was identified as one of the Shankill Butchers involved in a massacre at a Belfast social club. It was a tit-for-tat raid. The shooters came in, separated the Catholics from the Protestants, lined the Catholics up against the wall and shot them all dead. It was one of the most grisly crimes of the era.
“Later that year, the RUC rounded up Thomas and the eight other Butchers responsible for that massacre. Each one was given twelve life sentences, one for each of the twelve victims. Naturally, there was huge publicity surrounding the trials, not only because of the ghastly nature of the massacre, but also because of a general feeling that the RUC had been covering up for the gang for too long.”
I nodded my understanding. “Deirdre told me how the RUC was covering for the Butchers.”
Megan nodded. “Getting back to the Walkers, Thomas Walker was given twelve life sentences, but two years ago…”
“You’re going to tell me he was paroled? Doesn’t a life sentence mean anything in Northern Ireland? How about twelve life sentences?”
“The GFA would not have passed in 1998 without a substantial early release program. The Provisional IRA, the UVF and the UDA all demanded it. Over five hundred prisoners have been released. Walker was paroled to an address in Belfast in 2013, but he’s no longer there.”
“I suppose we have Thomas’s prints on file?” I said.
“We do.”
“Any matches from Fergus’s house, my hotel room or the tool used to puncture my tires?”
Megan shook her head. “The scratch awl was too smeared to get a print or even a partial. Unfortunately, there were no matches to any of the prints we collected from your room or your uncle’s house. And as you know, there were no prints on any of the papers or the pictures.”
“So, with all this are you any more serious about the vendetta theory than you were before?”
McLaughlin tilted his head this way and that. “Listen, you talk to historians and half of them will tell you that the Troubles, the whole sectarian war, was fueled by tit-for-tat killings. So, of course I’m willing to consider it. It’s as good a theory as any we have right now, but I’m not jumping on it.” McLaughlin leaned forward and pointed his finger. “I’m not abandoning my first theory of relativity. It’s worked for me for many years. I told Dooley to take a hard look at Fergus’s kids, Riley and Conor. My guess is that they’re going to inherit his estate, am I right?”
I grimaced.
“I know. You can’t tell me, but we’ll find out soon enough. I want Dooley to see if either one of them is in financial trouble, or in a situation where he’d need his father’s money to bail him out. Maybe they’re gamblers? Maybe they owe back taxes? Maybe they’ve got addictions?”
“I sat in that conference room today,” Megan said. “Conor screamed that he wanted Liam out of his business. Out of Northern Ireland altogether. He all but confessed to rifling the hotel room and slashing the tires. I wouldn’t be surprised if he made the prank calls to Liam’s house in Chicago. He’s paying good money to a solicitor to file an emergency motion to get the trust unsealed and throw Liam out.”
Hard to argue with her reasoning, but something in my bones told me that Thomas Walker was a more likely suspect than either of my cousins. Conor’s an irritant, for sure. But patricide? If I were complicit in a murder, I sure wouldn’t be drawing attention to myself in such a blatant, open manner. And Riley has always been as gentle and as timid as a mouse. I doubt that he had the courage or the strength to scuffle with or even confront his father. I knew Fergus, and I didn’t see Riley standing up to him. I didn’t think that either Conor or Riley needed money badly enough to commit such a horrific act. I was leaning hard toward Walker and the Butchers.
I stood to leave, and turned to Megan. “As long as you’re doing all these background checks, could you look at Charles Dalton?”
“Janie’s boyfriend? Mr. Gladhand?”
“Right. And also his company, Northern Exports.”
“How do they enter the picture?” McLaughlin said. “Is he mentioned in the Trust?”
“I shouldn’t but … no, he’s not mentioned. Janie is.”
“Do you think he has some involvement in the homicide?”
“Oh, no. There’s no reason to think he had anything to do with Fergus’s death or the photos. I like Janie a lot and I think she might be over her head with this guy. He treats her a little too roughly for me. I’d just like to know more about him. Also, would you please look into Global Investments, the company where Riley works? Fergus has a large stock holding in Global and we have that newspaper blurb that Fergus circled.”
Megan nodded. “Okay, I’ll get on it.”
I stopped at the door. “I’ve told you much more than I should have. I’m a lousy trustee. Please keep it confidential until you’re able to legally get a copy of the trust.”
“I’d like to learn a little more about the ongoing feud between the Taggarts and the Butchers,” Megan said, “and we think Eamon knows more than he gave us.”
“So you want me to see what I can get from my uncle?”
“We do.”
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll work on it. I’m going to get some dinner and turn in early. I have to face her honor Judge McNulty at nine tomorrow morning. Are you coming for the show?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Megan said.
* * *
I COULDN’T STOP THINKING about the Walkers and the whole Butcher gang. Archie Walker was the man who shot my sister. The man responsible for the death of my father. Archie Walker’s violent brother was released from prison two years ago and no one knows where he is? Is he now carrying the banner for the Walker family? It sure lends credence to the vendetta theory.
I also started worrying about Deirdre. She was so depressed when I left her. She seemed so frail to me. Here was a woman who forty years ago broke the curfew at the Falls. She marched down Leeson Street, defying armed soldiers, tanks and barricades to bring food into the Falls. She stepped in and raised Fergus’s two rowdy boys, one of whom now wants to throw her out on the street. She raised me for six formative years and I was thoughtless enough to ignore her for the last sixteen, but it didn’t diminish her love for me one bit. She’s still as warm and loving as she ever was. She doesn’t deserve the treatment she’s getting, especially now at the toughest time of her life. I vowed to give her the love and support that she gave to me when I needed it.
I also needed to talk to Eamon and he was staying with Deirdre for the time being. It was a good excuse to drive out there and check up on those two.
Deirdre swung open the door and gave me a warm hug. “Come on in and sit for a spell while I go wet some tea,” she said.
“Don’t put yourself to any bother. Really, I came by for a few minutes to talk to Uncle Eamon.”
“Well, you just missed him. He got a telephone call and ran out of here like a bat out of hell. And don’t tell me it’s a bother. It’s never a bother to have tea with my Liam.”
FIFTEEN
THE ANTRIM COURTHOUSE, ON Castle Way, was a short walk from my hotel. The building housed several different courtrooms, including the magistrate courts, the county courts and the crown courts. Judge McNulty presided in a county court on the third floor. Megan was waiting for me in the hall outside the courtroom.
“Ready for the fireworks?” she said.
“I suppose. I wish I didn’t have to be. I called Deirdre this morning and offered to bring her and Eamon to the hearing, but she told me it wasn’t necessary and she added that Eamon hadn’t returned from the night before. I’m worried about them.”
“They’re both here. I saw them enter a few minutes ago. The courtroom is full of Taggarts.” She opened the door. “Shall we?”
With a smack of her gavel, Judge McNulty convened the hearing. She was younger than I had imagined. I knew she wouldn’t be wearing a powdered wig, but I had envisioned a craggy, gray-haired woman. Why? I don’t know. To the contrary, she was attractive, had dark brown hair and was no older than Catherine. A stack of papers from the Taggart Estate file, including Conor’s motion to dissolve the trust and send me packing, sat before her. She commenced the hearing by calling the two lawyers to the bench.
“Mr. Cooney, I have read your petition. Do you have anything to add?”
Cooney looked hard in my direction and then said, “Your Honor, I set this matter on your emergency call because there is not a moment to lose. Every minute this valuable estate remains in limbo and unsupervised exposes it to the likelihood that everything will be lost. This estate, this valuable collection of real and personal assets, sits in the hands of a person without any connection to this country, a person who is responsible to absolutely no one for his conduct. We haven’t been allowed to see the trust agreement, so not one of us even knows what Liam Taggart is supposed to do with the estate. How can we hold him to his duties if we don’t even know what they are?
“Your Honor, even a cursory reading of Fergus Taggart’s will clearly shows that the man had taken leave of his senses. How bizarre is it to anticipate one’s own murder and not even alert the police? I would be disposed to suggest that he did himself in, but for the fact that there was no gun found at the crime scene. Even then, it is not beyond our contemplation that he hired another to end his life for him.”
“You monster!” screamed Deirdre. “What a vile thing to say. You have not a shred of proof to make such a foul, irresponsible claim.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” O’Neill said.
Judge McNulty slammed her gavel. “There will be no more outbursts, madam, or I will have you removed from my court. And as for you, Solicitor Cooney, this is neither the time nor the place for wild speculation.”
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