Death at Christy Burke's

by Anne Emery

Chapter 18

  Michael

  Michael sat at the table in his room Wednesday and read all about the plans for the special Mass for peace at the Pro-Cathedral the following night. The newspaper said the Archbishop of Dublin, the Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh, and the Bishop of Meath would concelebrate the Mass. The cardinal would give the homily. There would be a few short remarks by political leaders and clergy of other faiths. The church’s Palestrina Choir would sing the Mass. A beautiful service, by the sounds of it. But what was this? The paper made a point of saying that Father Leo Killeen, the “well-known Republican priest,” would not be speaking. Well, most people would not be speaking. Why single him out? Michael wondered if Leo was in his room. He thought he’d heard a radio in there. He got up and went next door, knocked, and was greeted by the well-known Republican priest himself.

  “Afternoon, Michael. You just caught me. I’m on my way out.”

  “Are you ever in for more than the flash of a second? We called you yesterday from Christy’s. Monty’s off home and wanted to say his goodbyes.”

  “Ah. I’m sorry I missed his call. I’ll see him next time, here or maybe over there. Who knows? So what’s on your mind today?”

  “I’ve just read that you’re not speaking at the peace Mass.”

  “I never was going to speak at it. Wasn’t going to sing at it, either, but now I’m doing that!”

  “The reporter makes it sound as if you got a belt of the crozier and were refused permission, or got turfed from the roster, or something like that.”

  “None of the above.”

  “Well, I don’t think much of that style of reporting!”

  “Thank you for being concerned, Michael, but don’t give it another thought. I’ve endured worse.”

  “I’m sure. Well, I’ll let you go, and I’ll send my blood pressure skyrocketing by reading the rest of the article.”

  “It will be a brilliant event, the peace Mass, no matter what the press says about it. Or about me. And to make it even more brilliant, Brennan has scheduled a little rehearsal for us this evening, seven o’clock. At the Aughrim Street church.”

  “Perfect. See you then.”

  Michael returned to his room and his paper. The news article was accompanied by the now-famous photo of Leo saying Mass in front of the British Army tanks in Northern Ireland with the crowds kneeling on the pavement for the Consecration. Soldiers and Orange Lodge marchers were visible in the background. Then there was an article rehashing all the troubles that had erupted after the death of the American evangelist.

  Michael headed out just before seven o’clock that evening and walked down the street to the church to join his fellow choristers for rehearsal. Leo joked that he and Michael, who were both about six inches shorter than Brennan, should have chairs to stand on to even things out. “Isn’t that what the matinee idols used to do in the talkies, to make themselves tower over the women?”

  “We’ll just give them a big voice,” Michael replied, “and we’ll be tall in their eyes as well as their ears. I’ll stand here, Leo, just in front of the maestro, and you —”

  “You’ll stand where the sound dictates, lads. So let me hear the two of you before I join in.” Brennan handed them the sheet music, then stood back to appraise them. When he had the sound he wanted, he joined in.

  They went through Ag Criost an Siol a few times, and the three of them didn’t sound half bad. Brennan pronounced himself satisfied, and Michael was keener than ever about the big night at the Pro-Cathedral.

  Finn Burke must have been in particularly good humour, or he may have been distracted by other concerns, if the television was permitted to quack away in the background of the pub without a hurling or football match being broadcast. Michael and Brennan had come to the pub after their rehearsal, ordered pints of Guinness, and sat themselves down at a table near the bar. Most of the patrons ignored the TV until the start of the nightly RTÉ newscast. And on this occasion, the lead story grabbed the attention of everyone in the room.

  “There has been a surprising turn of events in the murder of the man thought to have been responsible for vandalizing a well-known Dublin drinking spot. The body of the man people are calling the ‘Christy Burke’s vandal’ was found in a shallow grave near Dunsink Lane with green paint on his clothing, matching the spray paint on the walls of the venerable Northside pub. Now, another development. Garrett Logue has the latest. Garrett?”

  “Quite the bombshell at Garda Headquarters today, Aideen. Unnamed sources close to the investigation say the gardaí were ‘gobsmacked,’ to quote one source, by lab results showing the bullets in this killing came from the same gun that was used in the shooting of two Special Branch detectives back in 1969. That shooting occurred in County Monaghan, not far from the border with Northern Ireland. The shooting of officers Philip Duggan and Owen Casey has never been solved. The Garda Síochána refuse to confirm or deny that the bullets used in that long-ago incident are the same type as in the recent murder victim. But our sources stand by their claim.”

  Good heavens! What in the name of God . . . Michael turned to Brennan, who looked as if he’d been hit by a shock wave. Not often you saw that; Brennan was usually such a stoic, but on this occasion the eyes were nearly out of his head. His uncle, though, was standing there wiping glasses as if he hadn’t heard a thing. Wouldn’t you think Finn would be all ears? Perhaps he hadn’t been listening. As for Brennan, what was going through his mind? Did he know more about all of this than he’d let on? Undoubtedly. And why not? Finn was his uncle; it would be only natural for him to confide in a family member, if he confided in anyone. What on earth was going on?

  The news then featured a clip of the guards making inquiries at what appeared to be a car repair shop.

  “That’s McAvity’s!” someone at the bar exclaimed. Michael watched intently as the television showed police walking past the open bays of the establishment and entering the front door, then talking to a person at a counter inside.

  “That’s Nurse McAvity himself behind the counter! Would you look at the face on him! You’ll be needin’ a drink now, Bill!”

  “Oh, he’s a man in need of a drop, all right! Warm milk isn’t going to put you to sleep tonight, Nurse!”

  The reporter’s face came on, and he said, “Aideen, the gardaí are remaining tight-lipped about their investigation, but sources at McAvity Auto Service tell us the guards were taking samples of motor oil from the shop, apparently to be tested at the lab. Other sources tell RTÉ News that various substances are being collected for comparison purposes. That is, to compare them with traces of substances found on the body of the dead man. The man was believed to have been confined in the boot of a car before being wrapped in two large sheets of plastic and driven out Dunsink Lane to be buried. So, Aideen, several new avenues of investigation. Garrett Logue, RTÉ News.”

  An excited buzz arose around Michael in the pub. One wag said, “We thought you were the vandal, Nurse! Paying us back for slagging you about your drinking habits. But it seems you’ve done us a good turn. When we were all too sozzled to confront the vandal and cut his throat, you were out there being a man for all of us! Here’s to Nurse!” The wag raised his pint, then drank it down.

  Michael tuned out the banter. He was nursing thoughts of his own. There were many significant revelations in the TV news story, but one thing in particular puzzled and disturbed him: the statement that the dead man was confined to the boot of a car before being wrapped in plastic. Michael intended to follow that up next day.

  He was jolted out of his ruminations by the arrival of a familiar face.

  “They said He would come again. And lo and behold, here He is amongst us! If we only had palms to lay down before Him.” That was Finn Burke, having a bit of fun with his guest. And perhaps trying to distract himself and others from the bombshell that had just been dropped by RTÉ News.

 
“If I weren’t such a good-natured fellow, I’d tell you what to do with your palms, Mr. Burke. But I’m a jolly sort, so I thank you for that divinely inspired welcome.”

  “May I pour you a drink, Father?”

  “Not this evening, good publican, thank you all the same. I am here to press this gentleman into service.” Leo Killeen nodded towards Michael. “We’re getting ready for the peace Mass tomorrow night at the Pro.”

  A murmur went through the pub in response to his words.

  “Certainly, Leo. Let’s go,” Michael said.

  “I can’t promise to have him back to you this evening, Mr. Burke. I hope you will do a thriving trade nonetheless.”

  “We’ll carry on as best we can, Fathers. Godspeed.”

  The two priests left the pub and walked briskly down Mountjoy Street to Dominick, across Dorset, and over to Parnell. It was past nine-thirty but still as light as day; Dublin may have palm trees but it is as far north as Labrador, and darkness falls late on summer nights. The murder investigation was very much on Michael’s mind, but he knew Leo well enough to know this would not be a welcome topic of conversation. Even less welcome would be the murder of the Reverend Merle Odom, whose ghost brooded over the proceedings. Leo talked about the plans for the Mass, the procession, the music, messages to be given from the pulpit; it all sounded lovely. And, more to the point, it was the Catholics of Dublin taking a stand against the bombings and the shootings and all the other violence being perpetrated by those involved in the current Troubles, Catholic and Protestant alike. So despite all his other concerns Michael keenly anticipated the upcoming Mass for peace.

  As they walked along, Michael was struck by something in Leo’s demeanour; he kept glancing from side to side, and at one point he peered into the window of one of the shops as if it were a mirror. Was he looking at something behind him? Michael started to turn. But Leo gently took his elbow and directed him forward. Don’t turn around, was the message. What was going on? Michael made a point of catching the reflection in the next shop window, and he saw a small dark car a block behind. It didn’t seem to be moving. He picked up his pace, but Leo did not, so he slowed down again. The next window check showed the car slightly ahead of where it had been. Michael thought he glimpsed two men in the front seat but he could not be sure; he was not about to linger by the glass. Had he been too quick to dismiss the notion that he was being followed that day in the rain? When they got to O’Connell Street and stopped at the cross light, he casually turned his head, but he could not see the car. Had it gone? Or was it one of the many now in view, hiding in plain sight?

  There were two police cruisers across from the Pro-Cathedral when Michael and Leo arrived in Marlborough Street; otherwise, it was the usual crowd of priests, nuns, and busy-looking lay people on the steps of the church talking, carrying things, going in and out. A normal scene.

  St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral looked more like a Greek temple than a church, with its six front columns and its portico. The ornate interior, with a dome, Doric columns, and side altars, was a far cry from Michael’s little neo-Gothic church at home in Halifax, but he was well accustomed to the Pro after countless visits over the years. And he had given a spiel about the provisional cathedral to dozens of groups in his role as tour guide. Dublin’s real cathedral or, more properly, its original Catholic cathedral, was the medieval Christ Church, which the Pope had constituted a cathedral at the behest of St. Lawrence O’Toole in the twelfth century. Christ Church was taken over by the Protestants at the time of the Reformation. Only the Pope can grant cathedral status to a church, and none of St. Lawrence’s successors as Archbishop of Dublin had yet asked to revoke the status of Christ Church, so there was no official Catholic cathedral, just the Pro. Christ Church was still in Anglican — “Church of Ireland” — hands five hundred years after the Reformation. There was no getting away from history in Ireland.

  Fathers Killeen and O’Flaherty genuflected deeply upon entering the building and stood for a few minutes watching a group of women place enormous bouquets of lilies and white roses on the altar. Then the two were approached by a large, burly man with a wire running from his ear to somewhere inside his shirt. He took Leo aside and spoke to him quietly. Michael strained to hear. All he could make out was “so well known, Father,” and “escort you in and out afterwards,” then something about “take my orders from a higher power.” Leo patted the man on his powerful forearm and returned to Michael. Soon he and Leo were engulfed by a group of people discussing the liturgy, the placement of various prelates and dignitaries, and other details, and Michael threw himself into the work without any distractions. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks for being part of this event.

  Brennan

  It was all Brennan could do to stifle his impatience — his desperation — until closing time, when he could engineer a second nighttime confrontation with his uncle, this time about the Special Branch detectives and the gun. As soon as Finn locked the door behind the last lone reluctantly departing drinker, Brennan steered him into the dark recesses behind the bar and faced him.

  “The gun, Finn. Tell me about it.”

  Finn, sans the shady glasses, regarded Brennan for a long moment with his cool grey-blue eyes, then pulled up two chairs, and they sat facing each other.

  “You have to understand the effect the events of 1969 had on some of us here.”

  The history was well known to Brennan. Nineteen sixty-nine was the start of the new Troubles, in the North. Civil rights protesters were clubbed and beaten by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the B Specials, a force founded by an Orangeman who once said in a speech that he “would not have a Catholic about the place.” Their allies in the Loyalist paramilitaries began firebombing Catholic homes and businesses. In 1969 in Derry, the Bogsiders set up barricades to keep the RUC out and took to throwing petrol bombs at them. The Battle of the Bogside.

  “Thousands on the Loyalist/Protestant side joined paramilitary groups to have a go at the Nationalists,” Finn said. “That’s when things got so bad the British Army was sent in. And welcomed, even in some Catholic quarters, as you may know, Brennan. But they’ve long since worn out their welcome. Meanwhile, back in Belfast, rumours were making the rounds that the Irish Army was coming across the border, or the Catholics were about to rise up — the massacres of 1641 all over again. Anyway, it all culminated in brutal mobs descending on the Falls Road, shooting into people’s houses and setting them on fire. Nearly two thousand people lost their homes, the vast majority of them Catholics.

  “Where was the IRA in all this? A handful of veterans from the old days scrounged a few weapons together and opened fire on the mob and the B Specials. If not for these old IRA hands, and a few young Volunteers, the entire Catholic community might have been destroyed. But where was the rest of the IRA? Sitting on their arses here in Dublin, dithering about the future of the movement. How far left should it go? Not only were the IRA leaders obsessed with politics, they didn’t have any guns! They’d let things slide. Well, Northern Republicans were fed up with Dublin. Early the following year, the armed-struggle faction — the Provisional IRA — split from the politicos — the Officials.

  “Your grandfather Christy was after us all to round up every rifle and pistol and pot and pan, and bundle them all into lorries and take them up North. Which we set out to do. But he wouldn’t wait. He knew where to get his hands on a supply of guns and he did so, and he fired up one of our trucks and headed to the border in it. Seventy-six years old he was at the time, not a healthy man, but he was hard-headed and determined to do things his own way.”

  “Runs in the family, wouldn’t you say?” Brennan remarked. There was more than a bit of that in himself; he couldn’t deny it.

  “Em, well, anyway the oul man is thinking he can make one last contribution to the cause. He’s heading north in the dark of night in an unmarked vehicle, one that doesn’t say Burke Transport anywhe
re on it, and he takes a roundabout route to get there because he knows people in Monaghan, and likely stops to pick up a consignment there. When he passes Emyvale he notices a car pull in behind him, and it stays on his tail until he’s only about a mile from the border, and then this car whips by and veers in front of him and forces him to stop. It turns out this is Garda Special Branch, two of them in a car. One gets out and comes to Christy and demands to see what’s in the back of the truck.

  “‘How good are you with a gun?’ the garda asks oul Christy.

  “‘I’m brilliant.’”

  In spite of himself, Brennan had to smile at that.

  “‘All right,’ the garda says to him. ‘I could lose my livelihood here. So do this right. Put a round through the shoulder of my coat. Then get on the move. On the way by, fire one at the rear wheel of the car. Our man’s in the front on the radio, so make sure you go for the rear end! Don’t come back through Monaghan. God go with you!’

  “And the garda pulls out the shoulder of his coat away from his body, and Da fires a round through it. The man staggers back, playing out his role, and Da grinds the lorry into gear and goes forward. He fires a round into the rear tire of the garda car and another into the boot, races for the border, and gets across, then makes it to the outskirts of Belfast, where he meets his contact and unloads the weapons for the struggle. He turns around and comes back by way of Crossmaglen. And does he crow about it? He can’t, except to me.

  “There was an uproar about the gunrunner who shot at the guards, who were powerless to stop him; the story was, he nearly killed them. But he didn’t nearly kill them and he didn’t try to kill them. Nothing like that at all. Anyway, the garda who collaborated with Christy on the sly got to help the cause and keep his job, and everybody was happy. Oul Christy died with a smile on his face a few months later. Went out in a blaze of glory.”

  “Good man!” Brennan exclaimed, without even intending to.