Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told

by Phelan, Tom;

  Did he say anything?

  Yes, sir. He said, “I hate the sight of a corpse.”

  And you waited there until the sergeant came on his bike?

  Yes, sir.

  Thank you, Mister Lalor. That is all I have to ask you. Sergeant Morrissey will be the next witness.

  25

  In the Sunroom

  In which Elsie Howard proselytizes on behalf of skepticism.

  ELSIE SAID, “I DIDN’T KNOW I was considered a bit of a wit in the Protestant community, Sam.”

  “Patrick,” Sam said, “my wife is fishing for a compliment. She knows she was the most quoted wit in Protestant Gohen. She once declared that the reason why Catholics and Protestants are reluctant to be good friends is that each is equally afraid they might reveal the stupidity of the stuff they’re supposed to believe in.”

  “You are probably onto something there, Else,” Patrick said. “I’m afraid I’ve become a religious skeptic myself.”

  “Oh, don’t be afraid of being a skeptic, Patrick,” Elsie said. “It’s the duty of each generation to examine the ‘wisdom’ passed on by the previous generation. We’d still have slavery if some brave souls had not stood up and questioned inherited wisdom.”

  “May I?” Sam asked. “The floor is mine, Missus Howard.”

  “You may, Sam, but I think your were a bit harsh with Spud Murphy.”

  “Yes, Else. Now that I read it I realize how rotten I was. I can’t even take consolation from the fact that Spud Murphy was probably annoying the hell out of me.”

  “All is forgiven, Sam. The floor is all yours,” Elsie said, and she swept the room with the back of her hand.

  26

  Witness: Sergeant Morrissey

  1951

  In which garda sergeant Joseph Aloysius Morrissey, using Latin when necessary, tells how he proceeded to Sally Hill on his bike to secure the scene of death.

  SERGEANT MORRISSEY HAD a red, jowly face, and he spoke, almost sang, in a high-pitched Cork accent that belied the mass of his corporeality. His middle-aged belly pushed out the tunic of his blue uniform to give him a Humpty Dumpty look. The embossed, imitation silver buttons running in a shining and straight row down over the curvature of his gut had once prompted Pascal Lalor-the-postman to observe that, if the sergeant had a second row of buttons running parallel to the first, he would have the look of a standing-up sow on her way to give suck to her sixteen newborns.

  Everyone in the town was used to seeing the sergeant wearing his peaked garda cap, and so he presented an almost indecent aspect of himself as he sat bareheaded in the witness’s chair in the Woodwork Room. The reddish-yellow tone of his scalp was the only indication that his few remaining gray hairs had once been flaming red.

  Everything about Sergeant Morrissey was thick, his neck, his wrists, his fingers. Many a tinker who had become obstreperous after drinking away the Children’s Allowance on the second Tuesday of the month had felt the pincer-like force of those thick fingers—in blacks and blues had carried the painful fingerprints on his body for weeks afterward.

  Sergeant Morrissey had enormous feet. His boots were so big that Pascal Lalor, who believed there was a correlation between the size of a man’s feet and the size of his male organ, had once speculated, “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he has to be careful not to kneel on his whanger when he says the Rosary.”

  The coroner felt obliged to help the sergeant preserve what little semblance of authority he had by not cutting in and bringing the man’s ambling loquacity and displays of legalese to sudden halts.

  One evening not long after the inquest, Mister Howard, Esq., told his wife that the sergeant’s soprano voice drove him to distraction. His witty wife asked him if she could distract him from his distraction by cranking him to expansion in the bedroom. Mister Howard accepted his wife’s offer.

  After leaning back to hang his peaked cap on the lever of a vise attached to one of the workbenches, Sergeant Morrissey placed his half-acre hands on his knees and nervously awaited the first question from the coroner. The sergeant hated his middle name so much that he often said it out loud out of fear of saying it, the way a man who’s afraid of falling from a height will jump to end his fear of falling.

  It took the coroner several moments to figure out that the sergeant was addressing him as Esk. Perhaps the officer of the law was showing the natives that he was on familiar terms with the esquire, the same as a familiar person might address a doctor as Doc. At first it seemed the man had a lisp.

  CORONER: Please state your name and occupation.

  WITNESS: Aloysius, I mean Joseph Aloysius Morrissey. I am the sergeant of the Gardai Siochána in Gohen, Esk the Civic Guards as they are called. Or the Guards as most people call us.

  Sergeant Morrissey, can you tell the jury about the morning in question, from the time Mister Lamb met you?

  As I was proceeding down Pearse Street in Gohen on my bike, Esk going, as it were, from my house to the Barracks, I pedaled around the corner at Mister Morgan’s shop and observed Mister Lamb coming up the street at me. He was pedaling like a hure . . . at such a ferocious rate I knew right away that something was afoot. Before he got near me at all, I put on my back brake and swung my leg over the saddle. Just as I expected, Esk, and before my right foot touched the road, Mister Lamb applied his brake, too, and by the sound of it I knew his front wheel was out of line. He must have run into something at full force on his bike. I knew from Mister Lamb’s face that he was going to tell me something. I took my bicycle clips off the cuffs of my trousers.

  Sergeant Morrissey, please tell the jury what time it was.

  Just as Mister Lamb’s foot hit the road, Esk, I saw Quick Quigley-the-road-sweeper coming out of his gateway with his assencart. Hail, rain, frost or snow, as it were, Esk, Quick Quigley comes out through that gateway with his assencart to start sweeping the streets at half-past seven. I’ve never known him to be a minute late or a minute early. I don’t know how he does it. I put my bicycle clips in the right hand pocket of my tunic. I always like to know exactly where everything is, bicycle clips in the right tunic pocket, handkerchief in left trousers pocket, Esk.

  You may call me Mister Howard, Sergeant Morrissey.

  As you like, sir.

  So, it was half-past seven, exactly one half hour since the time Mister Lalor found the body. Sergeant Morrissey, please tell the jury what Mister Lamb told you.

  I have it written down here, Esk, your honor. Mister Lamb informed me that Mister Kevin Lalor-the-civil-servant had found a dead body out the far side of Desker at Sally Hill on Glower Road.

  That was exactly where he said the body was, on the far side of the Esker at Sally Hill on the Lower Road?

  That’s right, your honor, on Glower Road.

  Did he tell you anything else, Sergeant Morrissey?

  He said, “No morning’s a good morning to find a body, but to find a body on such a morning as this is a downright shame.”

  What did you take him to mean by that, Sergeant?

  Your honor, I took him to mean it was a grand morning; a bit misty, but grand all the same, a promise of sun but it was terrible to have a dead body in it.

  Did Mister Lamb say anything else, Sergeant?

  Upon questioning Mister Simon Peter Lamb, I discovered that he knew nothing more. It is my opinion that Mister Lamb’s role in the whole matter could be summed up as follows: Mister Lamb was carrying a spoken message from Mister Kevin Lalor, and the message was this: I have found a body on the far side of Desker at Sally Hill on Glower Road.

  In your opinion, Sergeant, Mister Lamb knew nothing else?

  He didn’t even know who the dead body belonged to, your honor. He didn’t know whether it belonged to a man or a woman or a child. And I said to myself, I hope to God it’s not a child. But then I thought to myself that it wouldn’t be me but Father Mooney who’d have to tell the father and mother. That’s a terrible thing to have to—

  What did you do next,
Sergeant Morrissey?

  I took off my peaked cap and blessed myself and prayed for the souls of the faithful departed. As the catechism says, “It is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the souls of the dead that they may be loosed from their sins.”

  After you finished praying, what did you do, Sergeant?

  I put my garda cap back on and straightened it. Then I asked Mister Lamb to go up to the Barracks to tell Garda Doran that I had to go out to the far side of Desker on an emergency that had nothing to do with the lavatory. I told Mister Lamb not to say anything else to Garda Doran because I didn’t want word of the body to get out until I knew whose it was. That way everyone wouldn’t be wondering and worrying was it a relation of theirs that was dead on the road out there at Sally Hill and come out running or on their bikes or in their assencarts and walking all over the scene in their big boots.

  That was considerate thinking on your part, Sergeant. Then what did you do?

  I asked Mister Lamb to go to Doctor Roberts’s house as well, and to knock till he got an answer, the doctor being a bit deaf, as it were, and not to pay any attention if the doctor et the face off him. I told Mister Lamb to tell the doctor there was a corpus on the road out at Sally Hill.

  Sergeant Morrissey, tell the jury what a corpus is.

  It’s a word we use in the law. It’s the Latin for a dead body. We use a lot of Latin in the law, like corpus delicious and happiest corpus and mea culpa.

  Now, tell the jury what you found when you went out to Sally Hill.

  As I was proceeding on my bicycle after going over the top of Desker, Esk, I came on the Martyr Madden—Missus Biddy Madden—on her way to work for Eddie-the-cap and Bridie Coughlin. When she heard me coming behind her, she made a plunge for the hedge at the side of the road without even looking around to see who was coming, so I shouted at her that it was all right, it was only me, Aloysius the sergeant of the Civic Guards in Gohen. She’s always plunging through hedges when she sees a body coming, tearing herself on briars and blackthorn bushes, covering herself with scabs that’s hard to look at. And the minute I said to her that it was only me the sergeant, I heard a noise behind me. When I looked around, I saw Mister Lamb on his bike and he puffing like Mick Hourihan’s steam engine at a threshing just behind me and he sweating like a pig, and the two of us overtook the Martyr at the same time, she keeping close to the bushes in case she had to get to the far side of the hedge quick, the thorns pulling her old coat and cap to bits. Mister Lamb told me he gave my message to Garda Doran and that Garda Doran said he would keep an eye on things, as it were, till I got back from the emergency I was on. Mister Lamb said Doctor Roberts must have been right inside the door, because he answered the first knock. The doctor didn’t even ate the face off him and said he would go out to Sally Hill as soon as he tackled his pony and yoked it to the trap. I said, “The doctor must of had a good night’s sleep to be so nice.” But Mister Lamb told me he that he once shouted back at Doctor Roberts when the doctor shouted at him, and he put the doctor in his place. And that’s why Doctor Roberts didn’t ate the face off Mister Lamb, and it so early in the morning to be looking for a doctor in the first place.

  And when you got to Sally Hill what did you see?

  As I proceeded toward Sally Hill with Mister Lamb on his bike, your honor, and me on mine, I asked him was it true what they were saying about him, that he was able to hear things from far away by twisting a few bits of wire together, as it were. As we went around the last bend on Glower Road before you get to Sally Hill, Mister Lamb was telling me I had him mixed up with Kevin Lalor-the-civil-servant, that it was Kevin Lalor-the-civil-servant who could hear the prices at the Dublin Cattle Market on a piece of wire, and Dublin fifty-two miles away as the crow flies, as it were. It was at the very minute he said, “Dublin Cattle Market,” that we came to the top of Sally Hill and I saw what looked like a bundle of clothes in the middle of the road and Mister Lalor standing beside it with his hands behind his back. I remember Mister Lamb said Mister Lalor’s wire was forty feet long when I was asking myself who could it be at all who’s lying dead in the middle of the road early in the morning and at the same time thinking, Dublin is more than forty feet from the Civil Servant’s house.

  You got down off your bike and leaned it against a bush, and then what did you do, Sergeant?

  I got down off my bike, but there was no bush there, your honor, to lean the bike against. There was only a barbed-wire fence and that’s what I laid the bike on. The sally bushes there are on the far side of the wire. I told Mister Lamb he was to stay where he was and not to approach the body, that he would only be disturbing what could be the scene of a crime, it being very important not to disturb the scene around the corpus.

  Describe what you found at the scene, Sergeant.

  I shook the heavy dew off my boots and took my trouser legs out of the bicycle clips and put them in the right pocket of my tunic, and I recognized the deceased right away. He was lying exactly like Mister Lalor told you; the left leg back under him, the other stretched out and off to one side a bit—to my right as I was looking at him. The head was odd-looking, but that was because of what I found out later, that when he came off the bike he’d smashed in the back of his head like a negg. His glasses were beside his left shoulder and they weren’t broke or anything. Gold frames. His hands were like the Civil Servant said, like he was pushing back, holding back a crowd of people at the gate to a football match when no one else is allowed in because there might be with too many people around; pushing and shoving, and soon enough someone takes a swing at someone else, and there you have it. One eye was out on his cheek.

  Did you closely examine the immediate area, Aloysius—Sergeant Morrissey?

  I did, your honor. There’s a small patch of Sally Hill that’s nothing but the top of a big rock that’s buried, that was never dug up as it were. People say it’s as big as a house. Some say it’s the top of a mountain if all the earth around it was scraped away. The body was down the hill by about one foot from the top of this rock and there was a splattering of blood on it. It is my opinion that when he fell off the bike, the deceased went over backward and hit that rock with the back of his head, and then skidded along the road on his back for about a foot.

  Were there any signs of a struggle, Sergeant?

  None at all, your honor. The only sign of anything was the animal footprints in the dust around the head. On close inspection I came to the conclusion that a fox and a badger had sniffed at the blood around the head sometime during the night.

  Were there any signs that the animals touched the body?

  None at all, your honor. There were just the paw prints, and as well as that there was a very light track that the tires of the bike made before and after the deceased fell off on his head.

  Were there any marks in the dust to indicate that the deceased had hit a wild animal with the front wheel of the bike that might have caused him to fall off?

  None at all, your honor.

  Did you search the general area, Sergeant?

  Yes, your honor. I searched the grass at the side of the road at the bottom of the hill where I found the diseased’s bike. The bike was new, and it didn’t show any signs at all that it had been in an accident. No hairs from an animal on the tires and no bent wheels or spokes. A well-kept bike.

  Did you search anywhere else, Sergeant Morrissey?

  Well, your honor, as you know, Sally Hill has big, strong sally bushes growing on each side. I looked in the grass among the bushes and, on one side of the road, the right side as you’re looking up the hill, the grass was pressed down like someone had walked in there.

  Did you reach any conclusion because of what you saw, Sergeant Morrissey?

  I came to the conclusion that a man had stood in the grass at one of the bushes to piss . . . I mean relieve himself, to go to the lav, because there was the wet mark on the trunk that you make when you relieve yourself at a tree, a man I mean, not a woman, a standing man when
he does nothing but his water, not the other thing because that would mean he was squatting and he wouldn’t be able to do his water on—

  Did you notice anything else out of the ordinary, Sergeant?

  No, your honor. I went back to where Mister Lalor was standing, and he asked me if I found anything, and I said no, just a place where a man had relieved himself, your honor. Mister Kevin Lalor-the-civil-servant said he was the one who’d pissed in the bushes . . . relieved himself in the bushes while he was waiting for me to come, standing up, of course, went to the lav. Then we heard Doctor Roberts pony in the distance, and in no time at all the trap came around the corner with the doctor in it.

  Thank you, Sergeant Morrissey, for a very clear and detailed report. You may go back to your seat. There will be a five-minute break before we hear from the next witness. In the meantime, Garda Doran, will you make sure Doctor Roberts is here in five minutes?

  27

  In the Sunroom

  In which the coroner, David Samuel Howard, notes that Sergeant Morrissey could act as God’s sleeping potion.

  “THAT MAN COULD RAMBLE down the highways and byways,” Patrick said.

  “Sergeant Morrissey would send God to sleep,” Sam said.

  “Sam, you must prepare me,” Elsie said. “Is there going to be anything else about rummagings on the sofa?”

  “Else, I wrote this stuff how many years ago? I’m as surprised as you are. If it gets bad I’ll hum and haw my way over it so that Patrick isn’t embarrassed.”

  Patrick said, “Oh, don’t be embarrassed on my account.” He smiled. “I am a clinical observer.”

  “Yes, Patrick! Just like Sam,” Missus Howard said. “There’s no such thing.”

  28

  Witness: Doctor Roberts

  1951

  In which Doctor George William Roberts relates the cause of the death of Father Jarlath Coughlin in medical terms, which he translates into English for the incognoscenti.