Death at Christy Burke's

by Anne Emery

  Michael could puzzle over it till doomsday and be none the wiser. And he could hardly walk into the nearest garda station and ask the sergeant on duty about it. The only person Michael could think of to ask was Leo Killeen, who seemed to be in the know about many shadowy activities in and pertaining to Ireland. He would buttonhole Leo the next day and see what he could find out.

  “I’m going to have a word with Leo,” Michael told Brennan Saturday afternoon. They were sitting in Michael’s room having a cup of tea.

  “A word about what?”

  “Madigan, if you’ll be kind enough to excuse me for a minute.”

  “That’s about all the time it will take for Leo to put the run to you.”

  “Maybe so, but I’ll give it a try. Help yourself to some more tea.”

  Michael got up and went to Leo’s room, knocked and was invited inside. After the two exchanged greetings, Michael got down to business. “Now I have a question for you, and don’t be taking my head off for asking it.”

  “Allow me to guess the subject of your question, if I might, Michael. ‘Leo, where can a fellow go for a bit of sightseeing and souvenir shopping for the folks back home? Somewhere scenic, not too frantic, so I can slow down the somewhat hectic pace of my visit so far.’ Would it be something along those lines, Michael?”

  “Em, no, not exactly, Leo. There’s a man who interests me in Christy Burke’s pub.”

  Leo sighed. “Yes?”

  “Fellow by the name of Eddie Madigan.”

  “What about him?”

  “You know him.”

  “I don’t know him well, but we’re acquainted, yes.”

  “I heard something about him.”

  “Of course you did. Because instead of contenting yourself with having an occasional pint and touring the country with your friends and saying Masses and hearing confessions — not that I don’t appreciate the assistance you’ve been giving us at the church during the course of your so-called vacation — instead of being content with those wholesome and spiritually uplifting activities, you are turning up little stones all over the city, and what may crawl out may not crawl back in again. I’ve warned you, Michael, and I’m warning you again, you may get yourself into the soup with some of your inquiries. Politics, loyalties, old enmities, you never know what you might be stirring up.”

  That of course brought the Merle Odom slaying to the front of Michael’s mind. “Leo, about the American preacher, who do you suppose . . .”

  Leo put up a warning hand. “Not now, Michael. What is it you came to ask me?”

  “Well, most of what we’ve uncovered so far in the Christy’s investigation has nothing political about it. Except perhaps in the case of Madigan.” Leo gazed at Michael without expression. Michael continued, “We’ve uncovered information that casts doubt on the story that Madigan was sacked from the police force because of drug-related corruption.”

  “Have you now.”

  “There was a break-in at the Public Record Office in London.”

  Leo was silent for a few seconds, then said, “Go on.”

  “It was Madigan.”

  “And this tells you what?”

  “There was something Madigan was so desperate to see in those files that he risked his entire career — risked arrest in England — to try to find it.”

  “And this is connected to your inquiries about the scribblings on the wall of Christy’s pub? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Well, in all honesty, I don’t know how it would relate, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I was wondering whether you knew anything about Madigan or the records he might have been looking for. Or whether you could recommend someone I could ask.”

  “I’ll tell you what I don’t recommend: raising this question anywhere within the hearing of a garda or a Madigan. Or a pub gossip sitting on a stool in Christy Burke’s.”

  “I had that much figured out on my own, Leo!”

  “Good man. Leave it with me. I’ll make a couple of calls. If I have nothing to tell you, give it up, Michael! Promise?”

  “If you have nothing to tell me, then there’s probably nowhere I can go with it anyway.”

  “That’s not exactly the sort of promise I was looking for.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I guess I’ll have to live with that!”

  Michael caught Leo glancing at his wristwatch and said, “I’ve been taking up your time here, Leo.”

  “No, Michael, it’s not you. It’s just that I’m expecting someone,

  so . . .”

  “I’ll be off then. See you later, Leo. Dominus tecum.”

  “The blessing of God on you, Michael.”

  Brennan

  Michael returned to his room and said to Brennan, “I’ve made some inquiries. If they pan out, my son, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Brennan nodded absently. He had his head in a newspaper full of rioting and violence in the North of Ireland in the wake of the American minister’s death. He and Michael exchanged a few comments about that but Brennan had other things on his mind. It was no accident that he was sitting idly in Michael’s room that warm, sunny Saturday afternoon. He was there at the request of Leo Killeen, who had been very enigmatic but said he’d like to have Brennan in the house. On standby, he said. He was expecting a visitor and, if there was trouble, Leo might have to call on Brennan for backup. He also instructed Brennan to leave Michael O’Flaherty out of it. How he could do that, with the pair of them sitting at Michael’s kitchen table, Brennan didn’t know. He would deal with it if he had to.

  After a few more minutes of conversation with Michael, Brennan heard footsteps outside and turned in his chair to look out the window. A youngish priest was striding towards the house, glaring at it as if it might be the wrong address and a waste of his time. He appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties and had an uncompromising look about him; Brennan would not want to blot his copybook in that fellow’s catechism class. But then, the same had been said about Brennan himself. He heard a sharp rap at the door and heard Leo go out of his room and head downstairs.

  “Oh,” said Michael, “Leo’s having company. He told me he’s expecting someone.”

  “Mmm,” Brennan replied.

  It struck him then that there was something familiar about the visitor. Brennan ran the image of the man’s face through his mind like a videotape. Exactly like a video — then he recognized him. The man who had shot and killed the Reverend Merle Odom was here in Leo’s house, dressed as a priest.

  Michael was sitting in the kitchen chair closest to the wall adjoining Leo’s room. Brennan wanted that seat.

  “Can you hear that?” he asked Michael.

  “Leo, you mean?”

  “No, the bells. Where would they be coming from at this time of day? It’s not time for the Angelus.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Sit here. Maybe you can figure out what church it would be.”

  So they switched seats, and Michael pulled his chair closer to the window in the hopes of hearing the nonexistent, or at least non-ringing, church bells.

  “I don’t hear a thing. But your ears are younger than mine. And more acute when it comes to music and bells.”

  Brennan shrugged and got Michael onto another subject of discourse. Brennan then tuned Michael out because his attention was focused elsewhere, on the sounds coming from the room on the other side of the wall behind him. He couldn’t make out a word of conversation but he could hear voices. Voices raised, voices lowered. Raised and lowered. And on it went. What was the man — Desmond, that was the killer’s name — what was he doing here? What were he and Killeen discussing so intently in the room next door?

  Brennan jumped, startled by a loud noise, and spilled his tea all over his
arm. What was that? A loud crash on the other side of the wall. Then nothing. Absolute silence.

  Michael sprang out of his chair and started for the door, but Brennan was ahead of him.

  “Michael, stay here.”

  “There’s something going on in there! Leo —”

  “Michael, I know. I’m going to handle it. For your own good, stay in here with the door shut. Don’t show your face.”

  “But —”

  Brennan stopped him with a hand on his chest, then bounded to the door, wrenched it open, and launched himself towards the door to Leo’s room. He knocked. No answer. Knocked again. Something had happened in there. But not to both of them, surely. And who was more likely to have had the better of an encounter? The slight, elderly Leo Killeen or the strapping young man Brennan had seen entering the house? Brennan turned the doorknob and pushed. The door opened without resistance; Leo had left it unlocked. There was a man on his knees on the floor and another standing, glaring down at him, eyes blazing. Gone was the hard, arrogant look from the face of Desmond of the Provisional IRA. He was on his knees before Leo Killeen, his expression one of misery and apprehension. Leo was the embodiment of the wrath of God; his intensity was unnerving even to Brennan, standing in the entrance out of harm’s way. Leo had things well in hand. Brennan wasn’t needed. He backed out of the room and quietly shut the door.

  Michael was standing where Brennan had left him, his light blue eyes pinned to the doorway.

  “It’s all right. Really. Leo’s got things under control.”

  “Who’s in there? What’s going on?”

  “I can’t tell you, Mike. And you’re better off not knowing. Go and wet the tea. We’ll have a seat and wait till the fellow departs.”

  Not long afterwards, they heard the sound of someone leaving Leo’s room and going down the stairs. Michael turned in his chair to peek out the window.

  “Michael, turn around. Get away from the window.”

  Brennan’s tone of voice did the trick. Michael whipped around to face Brennan, a look of bewilderment and then fear in his face. “Brennan, what in God’s name . . .”

  Brennan put his hand on Michael’s shoulder, and peered around him. He could see Desmond out on the pavement, with a videotape in his right hand. He walked away, diminished, his eyes cast down, the swagger gone from his step.

  Brennan didn’t move from the window when Leo came into the room.

  Leo dispensed with the preliminaries. “Michael, I’m sorry. I have to speak to Brennan alone.”

  Brennan followed Leo into the hallway and gently closed the door behind him.

  “He found out about the videotape,” Leo explained. “Not surprisingly. Young Clancy ’fessed up that he had brought the tape to me for his own protection, so somebody would know he wasn’t the one who shot the minister. Of course Desmond couldn’t allow that to go unchallenged, given that it was him on the tape committing the murder!”

  “Thank Christ he didn’t take matters into his own hands and go after Clancy.”

  “Well, he couldn’t, with the tape still out there.”

  “So he came to Dublin in clerical dress.”

  “On my advice. He’s not the first man to cross the border, in either direction, disguised as a priest!”

  “Nobody would look twice at him coming to this house.”

  “Exactly. But as soon as he’s inside, he’s effing and blinding, and threatening to kill those two poor goms who snatched the American. Says he knows they’re back in Dublin now. Clancy and his accomplice, whoever he is. Where was the videotape? Did I make copies? Well, I had to settle him down in short order. I invited him to tear the place apart looking for a copy. But he didn’t. He knew I wasn’t lying to him. I had the one and only tape, and I slammed it down on the table so hard I snapped one of the table legs off; that would be when you came in to see what had befallen me.”

  “I was afraid he’d attacked you.”

  “No, no, not at all. He’s the one who’s afraid, for his immortal soul. Killing a man in cold blood, and threatening to kill two others. Well, I got him settled down. He knows Clancy and the other lad will be going to their graves without telling the story. Those two are painfully aware that if the Desmond name gets about, he’ll know they talked. Desmond understands a couple of other things as well. That I’m not about to turn informer, so he has nothing to fear from me. And if he crosses me or causes me any harm, he’ll have his conscience to answer to. But more than that, he’ll have some earthly beings to answer to as well! Men who wouldn’t be up and walking if it weren’t for my interventions on their behalf; they ‘owe me,’ to put it in the crass terms of the marketplace. I put the word out to these fellows, without of course saying what Desmond had done; just said that if I come to grief they should look to Desmond as a possible cause. I got Desmond sorted.”

  It was clear to Brennan that Father Killeen was as formidable as a man of God as he had been as a commander of the Irish Republican Army.

  “So, Brennan,” Leo said lightly, “does all this tempt you to take on a new ministry?”

  “Not sure I’d be up for that sort of encounter with my parishioners.”

  “All in a day’s work, Father.”

  “How do you manage it, Leo?”

  “Hate the sin, love the sinner, Brennan. Nothing new in that. I’m with them in their goal but not in their methods. Not anymore. And whatever they’ve done, they know I’ve done the same. And that my work now is the salvation of souls, theirs and my own.”

  “I understand you that far, Leo. But Desmond . . . Never as long as I live will I get over seeing him shoot that man in the head. And now, all the rioting and uproar. How will it ever be resolved? They’re never going to catch anyone for it.” Brennan was silent for a long moment, trying to take it all in. “But then, that’s not our job, is it?”

  “No, it is not. The Killeens are not informers, the Burkes are not informers. We don’t turn people in to the authorities. Brennan, you and I listen to confessions every week. How many grave sins do we hear and carry around with us, knowing we will never utter a word to a living soul, knowing that those sinners — in some cases criminals, even murderers — may never be brought to earthly justice, and will certainly not be brought to justice by you or by me?”

  “I know,” Brennan said quietly. He too had heard the confessions of murderers in his time as a priest. “I know.”

  Michael

  It was driving Michael nearly to distraction wondering who that man had been at Leo’s in the afternoon, and what Leo and Brennan had to discuss out of Michael’s hearing. Brennan had left without stopping in to see Michael again, so whatever it was, he did not want to be questioned about it. And he knew Michael would not have been able to resist asking! But Brennan and Leo would not have excluded him without a good reason. That, however, only made it more maddening; what in heaven’s name was going on? Well, if he was meant to know, he’d know. Sometime. For now, he would do a bit of laundry and cleaning up, then head for his regular drinking spot later on.

  When he dropped in to the pub that evening, it was packed. Nothing like hot summer weather to entice people into a dingy, smoky bar! Speaking of smoke, Brennan was there with a burning cigarette hanging from his lips, almost forgotten by the look of things, as he stared at a Gaelic football match on the television. He had on a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt that said something in Italian, and he looked as if he had been ensconced in Christy Burke’s pub for about twenty years. Everyone was glued to the coverage, including O’Hearn, Fanning, and Shanahan at the bar. Michael didn’t break their concentration to say hello. He joined Brennan and two other men at their table and tuned in to the action. Dublin was playing Kerry. Michael arrived just in time for a Dublin goal, and shouts of joy reverberated off the walls of the pub. It didn’t take long before Michael too was hooked. A pint of the black stuff appeared in front
of him, and he lifted it without taking his eyes off the screen.

  Michael became aware of someone standing by his chair and, when there was a break in the action, he looked up and saw Maura and Kitty.

  “Oh! Good heavens!” He got to his feet.

  “We’re not going to get much action out of this pair, Kitty,” Maura said. “Holy priests of God that they are and, typical men, sitting in a bar swilling booze and staring at the game on television. Just our luck. Let’s dump them.”

  “Sure, you’re right, Maura. Ten minutes after we’re gone, one of them will say to the other, ‘Did you see that? He picked the ball up directly from the ground. His foot didn’t touch it at all, at all! Em . . . wasn’t there somebody else here?’”

  “‘Wha? Not that I ever noticed.’”

  “They didn’t notice us standing here, they wouldn’t notice us gone.”

  “No!” Michael protested. “Stay. I’ll get you a chair. Two, I mean. Brennan?”

  “Eh? Oh. Evening, ladies.”

  Only then did Brennan remember the cigarette, with the ash nearly an inch long on it. He took one last drag from it and ground it out in the ashtray. A roar went up from the crowd on the television as a Dublin player got a yellow card, and all eyes swivelled to the TV. Then Brennan looked at the women again and started to get up.

  “You’re a wise pair,” Maura said then, and turned to grab two chairs from the next table. She hoisted them over the heads of two fellows at the table. They didn’t even notice.

  “I’ll get those,” said Brennan.

  “I’ll help you,” Michael insisted.

  “Never mind. I have them. We’re not helpless, are we, Kitty?”

  “Indeed we are not. Nor are we here to while away the entire night,” Kitty declared. The women sat down. “I have a message for you boys from Leo Killeen.”

  “Oh! We saw him earlier today.”

  “Well, earlier today, Michael, Leo hadn’t yet been put on the spot with respect to the music for the Mass at the Pro.”

  “Mass?”

  “You remember Mass, don’t you, Monsignor?” Maura put in. “The Holy Eucharist? Historians say it predates the development of the game of football, at least as we know the game today. In fact —”