The Trust

by Ronald H. Balson

  “I’ll be there,” I answered. No sooner had Megan left the house than her prediction came true. Tension levels climbed rapidly. Loud pronouncements bounced off the walls of the living room. Conor was exercising his pipes.

  “To hell with the PSNI, to hell with Liam,” he bellowed. “There’s not a one of them can find their ass in the dark. I say we hire a team of investigators to find these Walker bastards and we’ll take care of them ourselves.”

  “I’m with my dad,” Sean said. “Are we going to stand by and let them pick us off one by one?”

  Robert, characteristically quiet, sat on the couch and nodded his head. “I hate to say it, but I agree with Conor. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the work of the Butchers. It has their stink all over it. Blindside an eighty-year-old man with a truck. Next thing you know it’s a firebomb through one of our windows.”

  “I tell you right now, every one of you best have a loaded gun sitting by your bed,” Conor said. “The war is on. When the time comes, there’ll be—”

  “Uncle Eamon had a loaded gun,” I said, interrupting this vigilante talk. “What good did it do him against a half-ton pickup? How many of you ever fired a gun? You think you’re John Wayne, you can pull your six-gun out of your holster and hit a bull’s-eye at a hundred yards? This foolish talk will end up getting you killed.”

  “This is no time to be a coward, Liam,” Sean said. “It’s time to finish the Walkers for what they’ve done to our family.”

  “You’re going to go hunting some Walker descendant who could be totally innocent? What do you want to do, rekindle the Troubles? Restart the war? Do you have a burning desire to go to prison? Leave the police work to the police. I know firsthand that they’re working on it.”

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Chicago Private Investigator, you got your nose where it don’t belong,” Conor said and looked around the room for concurrence. “Don’t be coming here and telling us what we should be doing.”

  Robert stood. “Conor, there’s no call for disrespect. He’s done nothing to warrant it. You may not agree with him, but he’s your cousin and he’s only trying to do his best. However, you and your son raise a valid point. We can’t depend on the PSNI to stop the killings or chase down the Walker gang. They’re Protestants, we’re Catholics. They’re loyalists and we’re nationalists. All the old allegiances have reared their ugly heads and here we go again. It’s the UVF and the IRA. The Butchers and the Taggarts. Just because they put fancy lipstick on Belfast doesn’t mean the old neighborhoods are gone. The Walker gang has emerged like the locusts from the ground and it’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.”

  That was enough for me. “What Walker gang? We don’t have any proof that any Walker descendant still walks the earth. Look, I want to catch the killer as badly as you do. He sent one of those pictures to my house in Chicago. I had to hire armed guards to sit outside my house around the clock. I want him just as bad, but I’m not walking into the Shankill with six-guns blazing. This ain’t the Wild West.”

  “Then you’re a coward,” Conor said.

  Robert got his coat and started for the door. “I’m going to head over to Eamon’s and pick up old Wicklow. Someone’s got to care for that dog now that my brother is gone.” He wiped a tear. “No one will mourn Eamon’s passing harder than that old shaggy Lab.” The room was silent as Robert left. Then the Rambo talk picked up and continued for an hour or more, until the last of the visitors had gone. Deirdre quietly joined me in the kitchen.

  “They’re not all wrong to talk that way, you know,” she said. “They’re frightened. I’m frightened. You should be too.”

  “A war between the Taggarts and the Butchers? Is that the answer, Aunt Deirdre?”

  “Fergus wouldn’t back away from it. He’d get his revenge.”

  “Revenge against whom? We don’t have any proof that any of the former Butchers are responsible. At this stage, we have no evidence who the killers are. The pictures could be a hoax.” Then it occurred to me that I was sounding like Catherine, Megan and McLaughlin.

  “What more evidence do you need? It has Butcher written all over it. They put pictures in mailboxes the night before they kill. You were smart to hire guards.” She put her cup in the sink, leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m tired and I’m going to bed. You’re welcome to stay here tonight. If you’re hungry, there’s good corned beef in the icebox. I boiled it this morning.” She tapped me on the top of my head like I was eight years old and shuffled off to bed.

  I looked at my watch. It was three thirty. The sun would be up in a couple of hours. I decided to accept her offer and sleep on the couch. Goodness knows, I spent many a night on that couch. And I was also well practiced in raiding her icebox. I made a corned beef sandwich on black bread, opened a Harp and sat reminiscing in the still of the early morning.

  As it was bound to, sitting in the kitchen and savoring Deirdre’s boiled corned beef brought back memories of Annie. Deirdre served corned beef to Annie and me our third time together right at this table. A few days after the festival, I had telephoned to ask Annie out. I told her I had a great time and she said she did too. The conversation stumbled along for a while and I said, “I’d love to have dinner together, just the two of us without the crowd.”

  “What do you have in mind?” she said.

  Loaded question, I thought. “Actually, I make a fabulous lamb ragout,” I said, which was a total lie. I’d never made a ragout anything.

  She hesitated for an uncomfortable moment. I broke in, “Or we could go to Aunt Deirdre’s for Sunday dinner.”

  “I like that idea,” she said.

  This dinner with Annie was different. We came as a couple. We talked as a couple. We looked at each other like a couple. Aunt Nora smiled at us. She was clearly putting us in the success column in her matchmaking notebook.

  When I drove Annie home, we sat in the car for an hour. Finally, in a justifiable state of anticipation, I walked her to the door and took her in my arms. The softness of her kiss, her arms around my neck and the feeling of my hand in the small of her back are imprinted in my memory. I can feel them still. But she said a quick good night, turned and closed the door, leaving me once again standing on the stoop, bewildered. And come to think of it, bewitched and bothered as well. I chose to attribute the abrupt ending to the hurtful residue of her previous breakup and her fear of a subsequent entanglement. Or perhaps it could have been due to a romantic stumble on my part, though I chose to reject that theory.

  After that dinner we began to date more frequently—lengthy dinners, walks through the park, tickets to whatever theater group we could find. We delighted in exploring how much we shared in common. I was infatuated by her wit, her playfulness, the depth of her reasoning and her luminous femininity. I was treading in deep water.

  My attempts to take our relationship to the next level were met with cautious resistance which, again, I chose to attribute to Annie’s recent breakup. But, after a few awkward starts and stops, the inevitable night arrived when we threw Annie’s caution to the wind. Both of us had known it was coming and it was altogether pleasing and comfortable. Our bodies seemed to fold together, a perfect fit. As Annie would remark, we were made for each other, as though we had placed the orders directly with the manufacturer. From then on, a sexual nightcap to an evening out was as natural as an after-dinner cordial. It became our routine, but it was never routine. And never at her place.

  I took a bite of my corned beef sandwich and told myself those were thoughts of Annie and life a hundred years ago. I needed to get my mind back to Chicago, back to reality. I already felt like I had been away too long. I was tired of getting into cold sheets. I wanted my Catherine. I wanted to give Ben his evening bottle. I needed to go home. Darn you, Fergus. I curled up on the couch and fell asleep.

  EIGHTEEN

  “YOU LOOK TROUBLED, MY boy.” Fergus sat in the wingback chair facing the couch, his legs crossed, his el
bow resting on the arm of the chair, a familiar pose. He had a concerned look on his face, but he smiled paternalistically.

  “I am troubled, Uncle Fergus, can you blame me?”

  “You’re mad at me, aren’t you, Liam, for dragging your sorry self back here?”

  “Not just for bringing me back to Ireland, but for throwing me in the middle of a firestorm. Everyone’s looking to me for answers and I don’t have any. Why did you pull me into this?”

  “Because I trust you like no other.”

  “Then help me out. Give me some answers. Point me in the right direction. At least give me a clue.”

  “That’s not my role.”

  “Oh, excuse me. What is your role?”

  “I guess you’d say I’m out and about on my heavenly pursuits.”

  “What pursuits? You’re dead.”

  “Why, the evolution of my soul, dear boy. The better place. The life beyond. The next world. I’m hanging with my heavenly hosts.”

  “And I suppose you’re too busy? Maybe saving the life of another Taggart interferes with your having a pint with a heavenly hostess?”

  “Watch yourself now, son, disrespect’ll get you nowhere.”

  “Then help me.”

  Fergus pondered the question, twisted his lips, and finally said, “Use your good judgment, it’s never failed you in the past. And pay attention to your wife.”

  “Are you chiding me for thinking about Annie? Is that it? Well, hell, it’s not my fault, you brought me back here and I keep running into memories all over the place. You know how much I loved her and how crushed I was when we broke up. But I assure you, I’ve put that all in the past. You needn’t worry; Annie is a closed subject. It’s all behind me now.”

  Fergus raised his eyebrows and pointed his finger at me. “All behind you now? All in the past, is it? No thoughts of your nights together? No feelings for her? No desires? Don’t fib to your uncle Fergus, Liam. I can see right through you.”

  “It was another time, another life. I have a wife and a child. I’m devoted to them and I wish I was with them.”

  Fergus just sat there with a concerned look on his face. “You asked me to help you. The best answer I can give you is to pay attention to your wife.” His voice came across in a distant echo.

  “Okay, I won’t think about Annie. Is that it?”

  Fergus shook his head.

  “I don’t get it. What do you mean pay attention to my wife? If not Annie, then what? Are Catherine’s theories correct? Should I pay attention to those? Does she have the answers?”

  Fergus stood and brushed off his slacks. He shook his head again.

  “It’s not about Catherine’s theories? It’s not about Annie? Then what?”

  Fergus raised his eyebrows and continued to shake his head. His appearance was starting to fade.

  Then I thought about Catherine, the phone calls and the FedEx’d picture, marked for death, and I started to panic. “Wait, Uncle Fergus. Is her life in danger? Is that it? Is that why you keep telling me to pay attention to her? Is something going to happen to Catherine? Is she marked for death? Answer me!”

  Silence. I looked around the room. Fergus was gone. “Wait a minute, you can’t leave. Come back here. What do you mean pay attention to my wife?”

  “Uncle Fergus!” I shouted. I woke up in a sweat, jumped off the couch and looked around the living room. Dawn was breaking.

  “I’d like to pay attention to my wife,” I said to the empty room, “but she’s three thousand six hundred miles away.”

  * * *

  MEGAN AND MCLAUGHLIN WERE waiting for me when I arrived at the station. McLaughlin extended his condolences on the death of Uncle Eamon. I thanked him for that.

  “Do you now concede that this is the work of the Shankill Butchers, or what remains of them?” I said. “They’ve killed my sister, my father, my uncle Fergus and now my uncle Eamon.”

  “I’m sorry, Liam, truly I am. And I do concede that your theory has merit, certainly it’s the strongest theory we have, but I’m not closing the book on other causes and other persons. Do you know what question keeps recurring? Who stands to benefit the most from the deaths of Fergus and Eamon? To my way of thinking it may very well be the remaining beneficiaries. I keep wondering what Fergus possessed that was so damn valuable. Would we be so off-base to focus on another member of the family?”

  “Megan, you’ve met them all,” I said. “Riley, Conor, Janie, Deirdre and Robert. Do any of them seem capable of committing or arranging for these murders? Do any of them impress you as needing a greater share of my uncle’s estate, enough to murder two people?”

  She shook her head. “No, not from what I’ve seen, but we don’t know them well enough.”

  “I happen to know that the two of you have been digging into each one of their lives.”

  “Guilty,” McLaughlin said, “but nothing stands out. Robert seems comfortable in his retirement. He lives in the Titanic Quarter. Credit report is good, but he’s on retirement income and his apartment is pricey. Could he be in over his head? Conor’s divorced and that’s always a financial disaster, but he has an insurance business that seems to be on solid footing and he doesn’t have any sizable debt. Deirdre shared a bank account with Fergus that went to her as a survivor. It had a decent balance. The trust gives her a life estate in the farm. She’s comfortable enough, but does she think she’s entitled to more because she’s a surviving spouse? Riley’s a highly compensated officer at Global, but Global is being investigated and it’s on shaky footing. It may crater. He’s got a wife and kids and lives in an upscale development. Is he trying to move up the distribution chain? Then there’s this McGregor trust. Maybe the recipient is desperate for money? I’d like to know more, but there are levels of security to clear before we can open that trust and we haven’t been able to do that yet. And then there’s Janie.”

  “What about her?”

  “She has an apartment here in Antrim, but she dates Charles Dalton and stays at his condo most of the time,” Megan said. “He’s a high roller.”

  “Listen, I’m not crazy about the guy, but having a lot of money doesn’t make you a criminal or even a suspect. What’s wrong with Charles Dalton?”

  “As far as we can tell, he doesn’t exist.”

  “I shook the man’s hand. I can positively affirm that he exists.”

  McLaughlin leaned forward. “There are no birth records for Charles Dalton, no court orders changing somebody’s name to Charles Dalton, and prior to eight years ago, there are no Dalton records whatsoever. No social security, no tax records, no bank records, no titles to property. He just appears out of nowhere in 2008.”

  “Janie told me he graduated from Princeton.”

  “He did. With honors.”

  I sat back and shrugged my shoulders. “Well, those are records.”

  “True. When he applied to Princeton, he submitted a high school transcript from St. Patrick High School. Straight As. Played football.”

  “And?”

  “St. Patrick has no record of a student named Charles Dalton.”

  “There must be some explanation. He’s been living and working here for years. He’s a real person. Presumably he pays taxes.”

  “IDs are easy to forge,” Megan said.

  “Forged documents don’t make him a killer.”

  “Makes him dishonest,” McLaughlin said.

  “Not necessarily. There could be an explanation.”

  “Add to that the mystery of his company, Northern Exports. Supposedly he buys and sells linen and ships it to the continent, to a warehouse in Bosnia. From there it’s a dead-end.”

  I shrugged. “What’s mysterious about that? Irish linen is a quality product.”

  “Indeed it is, but these days it’s a small boutique industry. In fact, there’s really only one traditional linen weaver left in all of Northern Ireland: Thomas Ferguson & Co. in County Down. It’s the only one I know of. The rest of the linen industry
took the last boat out many years ago. There’s no fortune to be made there anymore.”

  “And Charles Dalton lives large.”

  “Yes, he certainly does. And so does his company. His warehouse is far larger than it needs to be.”

  “What’s in it?”

  McLaughlin shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll wager it’s more than linen.”

  I spread my hands. “He says he’s also a successful investor who plays the markets for a ‘few dollars.’” I put the phrase in quotes. “Can’t you get into the warehouse with a warrant?”

  “I could. I don’t have probable cause to get a warrant at this time and I don’t know if I want to play that card at this stage. I may not want Mr. Dalton to know I’m curious. And another thing, Liam,” McLaughlin said with his finger in the air, “I find it highly unlikely that your aunt Deirdre is as clueless as she professes. She couldn’t have lived with Fergus for all these years and been deaf and blind to what was going on. I think she knows a lot, but doesn’t want to say. I’ll wager she also knows more than you think about Global Investments and this Bridget McGregor Trust.”

  I shook my head. “She seemed surprised, even offended when I brought up the McGregor trust. My uncle could be very secretive when he wanted to.”

  “Hmm. Maybe she doesn’t know what she knows. Maybe she’s overheard conversations and didn’t place significance in them. Why don’t you see if she remembers anything about Global?”

  McLaughlin reached into a drawer and pulled out a gun. “You asked Megan for a Smith and Wesson and a permit. I’ll give you one of ours: standard-issue Glock 17. Please be careful.”

  I signed the paperwork and left the station. I had a lot on my mind, and a lot had gone down in the past few days, but thoughts of Catherine and her welfare dominated my thinking. My dream conversation with Uncle Fergus was doing a number on my nerves. I called Chick Chaikin to get a little reassurance that everything was all right, but that made it worse.

  “I didn’t want to alarm you until I was more certain,” Chick said, “but I’m keeping my eyes open and the safety off my Walther.”