Obit

by Anne Emery

  I got up and grabbed a pencil and paper. I tried to turn my mind to things I had heard but ignored or failed to appreciate until now. What did I know about Murphy/Fagan, aside from what I had heard from Nessie? He lived like a monk, devoted only to Roman Catholicism and Irish Republicanism. He had no friends; he did not go out with co-workers for an end-of-day pint, by the sound of things. His day job was as a maintenance man, no, a shipper in a manufacturing plant. He went to Mass every day. I wondered whether the priest who conducted the funeral knew anything about the man he was burying. Patrick said there was an older priest who spoke. That might be a lead. But what church was it? Patrick didn’t say. I would give him a call, but not at this time of night.

  Then I remembered Lieutenant O’Brien mentioning a church. The police had followed Fagan to Mass a few times at Saint — Saint What? This at least was one of the conversations I had taken notes on, and I dug them out. Saint Bridey’s. Bridey, as I knew very well, was a nickname for Brigid. Wasn’t there also a Saint Bride? I would check tomorrow. But who really cared what church Murphy/Fagan attended if there was no connection with Declan? It seemed I had had a conversation with someone on this very subject. Saint Kieran’s of the Crime Scene was the Burke family’s church and they had always gone there. Who was telling me? Bridey of course. She had gone to high school at Saint Kieran’s and had Brennan as a teacher. So even if there was a Saint Brigid’s or Bride’s or Bridey’s — Bratty’s. Somebody had made a joke about Saint Bratty’s. But the details had slipped my mind. I was too tired to concentrate. I scribbled a few more notes and climbed into bed.

  †

  As I resumed my normal work life and what passed for a normal family life, New York receded from my mind. Until I got a call from Brennan a few days after my return.

  “Good evening, Father Burke. What’s new in the gentle world of music and prayer?”

  “You’ll never guess who’s coming to town.”

  “Who?”

  “The oul divil himself.”

  “Not your father! Confession time?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “How long is he staying?”

  “Coming Saturday for three or four days.”

  “What’s the story?”

  “Didn’t say. Just: ‘Meet me at the airport and get me a room at the Lord Nelson.’ He won’t even hear of staying here at the rectory. The Lord Nelson — funny when you think of it, isn’t it?” There was a certain irony in a hotel named after a British warrior harbouring a man with Declan’s IRA past. “Let’s hope me oul da doesn’t come with a bag full of Irish play-dough and blow it up.”

  “That sort of thing is frowned upon here.”

  “You know they blew up Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin in 1966. The ’RA. But I don’t imagine that’s why he’s here.”

  “Forget the hotel. Bring him here.”

  “I’ll see what he has to say about it.”

  †

  When I arrived at the office the next morning my secretary, Tina, told me I had just missed a call. “A guy from New York. Said his name was Pat Burke. You don’t have to call him back but he faxed this to you.”

  “Thanks, Tina.”

  The phone was ringing when I got to my desk, so I put the fax down and picked up the receiver. It was Maura. “I’m taking the kids to Cape Breton tomorrow.”

  “What for?”

  “Funeral back home. It’s on Monday but I’m going for the weekend. And I’d like Tom and Normie to see everyone.”

  “Who died?”

  “Old Uncle Joe. You remember him. He was ninety. Smoked and swilled liquor all his life and didn’t have a sick moment till he dropped dead last night.”

  “Who’s Uncle Joe?”

  “Have you never listened to a word I’ve said the whole time I’ve known you? I don’t have time to fill you in. Read the obit!”

  “There’s that word again.”

  “We’re all a little skittish about the obituary page these days, Collins, but read it. I’ll call you later and let you know our plans.” Click.

  Who the hell was Uncle Joe? Her father, Alec, came from a family of eleven, but I didn’t remember a Joe. Her mother’s family only had five kids; they were regarded with some suspicion by their fellow Catholics in Cape Breton. No Joe there either, I thought. Maybe somebody’s husband, though I thought I’d met them all. I placed a call to our receptionist and asked for the waiting room copy of the Chronicle Herald. Then I turned to the fax from New York. It was a brief news story dated April 10, 1991. Yesterday. Patrick’s name was scribbled at the top.

  The FBI is refusing to confirm that it has teamed up with the NYPD in the investigation of the murder of an elderly woman in Williamsburg last month. But sources close to the investigation say the Bureau became involved when it was learned that the victim, Neasa Mary Murphy (formerly Fagan), 74, was the sister of Cathal Murphy, who died late last year. The FBI had “more than one file” on Cathal Murphy, according to the source. Neasa (Nessie) Murphy was found bludgeoned to death in her ground-floor flat Easter Sunday night, after police received an anonymous call. Police say it’s likely she had been killed the night before. A department spokesman says it appears that robbery was the motive, but it is possible there was a connection between the woman’s death and that of her brother.

  So the Feds were involved. And were denying their involvement. No real surprise there if Cathal had been informing to the FBI or some other agency about IRA activity on American soil. I hoped there had not been any agents watching Nessie’s house and witnessing my ignominious visit to the scene.

  I turned to the obituary page of the Herald. Allan James “Uncle Joe” MacKenzie, ninety-one, of Glace Bay. All right, he wasn’t a Joe at all. Perhaps not even a relative. Cape Breton was justly famous for its nicknames, though this one would pass unremarked in a province with names like Maggie in the Sky and Father Alec the Devil. “Uncle Joe spent all of his working life underground, first in the Phalen Seam and then in No. 26 Colliery. From the age of 17 he took an active interest in journalism and was a contributor to the Maritime Labor Herald until it suspended publication in 1926. Joe was back in print three years later with the Nova Scotia Miner.” That, I knew from my study of history, was a staunchly communist publication. Which might explain how the MacNeils knew him so well. The obit said Joe had toured the Soviet Union with a miners’ delegation in 1930. Hence his nickname, I supposed, after “Uncle Joe Stalin.” I wondered whether he had stayed loyal to the party through the twists, turns, contradictions and purges of the mid-twentieth century. How did he get along with young Alec the Trot(skyite) MacNeil, Maura’s father? I put the paper aside; I had done my homework; if she called, I had the facts.

  She did indeed call that evening, and I slipped a reference to Uncle Joe into the conversation, hoping to impress her with my memories of her family and friends. If she was impressed she didn’t let on, but she filled me in on the plans. She and the kids would be driving to Cape Breton right after school the next day, which was Friday. I got into the car and drove to the house on Dresden Row to say goodbye. Much to my surprise, Maura sat down with me and gabbed about Uncle Joe, his family, the music that would be played at the funeral, the rum-fuelled debates between Joe and Alec the Trot over how best to serve the Revolution; it was almost like old times. Maybe there was hope for us after all. I decided to make a move — not now, but next week after she returned from Cape Breton. I would call and ask her out to dinner. If she said she was busy, I would refrain from making a remark of any kind, and would simply suggest going out on a night of her choosing; she could let me know. I said goodbye to Tom and Normie, and left the house.

  I was restless after that so I put some blues on the car stereo and went for a cruise. I headed, as I often did, to Point Pleasant Park, where I sat in the car and watched a gargantuan container ship making its ponderous way into port. I remembered the consternation with which the first containers were greeted in certain quarters on the waterfront. A bit of pil
ferage from incoming ships had been part of life on the docks; now everything was sealed up in containers the size of box cars. Not so in the days when Cathal Murphy and his accomplices were sending shipments of guns over to Ireland. Why had the police not been able to catch him after that one incident? He must have stopped meeting his suppliers directly. Taken on a courier, according to Lieutenant Shammy O’Brien, to deliver the money. If that courier was Declan, where did they meet? Murphy/Fagan had a limited range of operation. He went to work, he went home, he went to church. He rarely set foot in a pub. O’Brien said they watched the factory and did not see anything amiss. Of course it could have been a co-worker who did the running for Murphy, but then wouldn’t the police eventually have cottoned on to this person as an associate of arms smugglers? Maybe not. I made a mental note to find out something about Murphy’s place of employment. What was the name? Des Ailes? French for “wings.” Desailes Corp. Aviation supplies. Were they still in business? I would give Terry Burke a call and see if he had heard of them. But I could not free myself of the suspicion that Declan was the courier. Old Nessie had left me with the clear impression that there was more to this than Brennan and I had been able to figure out. Surely Declan had not been meeting Murphy/Fagan at the Williamsburg apartment Fagan had by himself, not after the police searched it. That left me with Murphy’s other regular destination, his church. Saint Bridey’s or Saint Brigid’s, if I was remembering my conversation with O’Brien accurately. But even there, O’Brien had said, nothing was amiss.

  Still, there was something that had come to me a while ago. Some play on the saint’s name. Saint Bratty’s. That’s what I remembered. I had asked Brigid about it, and she said the family had always gone to Saint Kieran’s. Yet I had seen the words Saint Bratty’s scribbled — right, I had it — scribbled in crayon across a Saint Brigid’s collection envelope in the Burkes’ house. It was in the attic, the day I found the bank records suggesting blackmail. So somebody had been singing from a different hymn book. I went back to the story Patrick had told me about Francis running away as a child, hiding in the family car; he had ended up at Mass. Declan had left the house by himself, driven a long distance, and gone to church, a church where Francis was unable to find the toilets. An unfamiliar church. And when Declan found out Francis was along for the ride, he didn’t cuff the little fellow’s ears and give him hell; he just agreed that neither of them would mention it. Declan didn’t want anyone to know he’d been to . . . Sunday Mass. Did that make any sense? I put my car in gear and drove home. I had some calls to make first thing in the morning.

  †

  After clearing my desk of a few tedious matters the following day, I called Terry Burke’s number and got Sheila on the phone. Terry would be back from a layover in Frankfurt later in the day and would return my call. I told Sheila I was wondering whether Desailes Corp. was still in business, and whether Terry knew anything about it. I agreed with her that it was unlikely. He flew the planes; he didn’t build them. I rang off and called directory assistance in New York for the number of Saint Brigid’s Church. It turned out to be in Bay Ridge. My map told me that was in Brooklyn, across from Staten Island, quite a ways from anywhere I had been during my travels in the outer boroughs. I dialled the number, and asked for the parish priest. But what I really wanted was to get through to the older priest, the man in the walker, who had spoken at Cathal Murphy’s funeral. It took some effort but I finally had the older man on the phone, in a home for retired priests in Brooklyn. Father Grogan was a little deaf so I adjusted my volume.

  “Thanks for speaking to me, Father. My name is Monty Collins and I live in Nova Scotia. I’m doing a bit of genealogy, and you may be able to help me.”

  “Looking for your roots type thing, would it be?”

  “That’s right. My mother was a Murphy.”

  “Aren’t they all?” The old man let fly with a guffaw, ending in a racking cough that held up my research for a good two minutes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Collins, sorry. Now, your mother was a Murphy. Go on.”

  “She had a cousin down your way, and apparently this man did a lot of research on the family tree. Somebody suggested he was a member of your parish, maybe as far back as the 1950s.”

  “You make that sound like the 1850s, Mr. Collins! It’s not far back at all. Not for me. Maybe I can help you.”

  “Great. Would you happen to remember a Cathal Murphy? I believe he immigrated to the States —”

  “Cathal Murphy. Sure, I remember Cathal! Wasn’t I just speaking at his funeral the other day? Well, more like a few months ago it was, but, yes, Cathal. He was your uncle, did you say?”

  “Not an uncle, but a second cousin, I suppose he’d be. I was upset to hear he died. I had been hoping to get down there and pay him a visit. Just goes to show you, we should never put off things like this.”

  “No indeed, we should not.”

  “What can you tell me about Cathal, Father, anything?”

  “I didn’t see anything of Cathal outside the church, but I saw a great deal of him in my years at Saint Bridey’s because the man was at Mass several times a week. Came to the eight o’clock on Sunday mornings, and the noon Mass on weekdays. A very devout man, was Cathal. I was in the parish on and off for over twenty-five years, and Cathal was a regular communicant all that time.”

  “Did he belong to any church organizations, that sort of thing?”

  “No, I approached him to join the Holy Name Society once but he just seemed to want to take part in the sacraments. Not a joiner, I don’t think.”

  “The sacraments including confession?” I said lightly.

  “Ha ha. You know I can’t speak of that. But now that you mention it, no, Cathal must have had another priest as his confessor.”

  “Did Cathal attend Mass by himself?”

  “Always by himself. He had a sister but I didn’t meet her until Cathal died. She apparently went to a church closer to her home. Cathal liked Saint Brigid’s so he came to us.”

  “Was there anyone else in the parish he was close to? Any particular friends?”

  “Not that I ever noticed. He was polite and friendly, but I never saw him talking with anyone in particular, no.”

  “There’s another name I want to try on you, Father, because he seemed to be connected to Cathal in some way. He may have been a parishioner. Did you know a Declan Burke?”

  “That sounds familiar. I’m getting a picture in my old brain here now, if you’ll just give me a second. There’s something —” I let him process his memories for a few moments. Then he laughed. “Yes, I knew Mr. Burke. But I knew him, in the beginning anyway, as Donal O’Byrne. I’ll explain that to you in a minute. He used to come to the eight o’clock Sunday Mass once a month or so. More like every two months. Now I found this curious because whenever he did show up, he was more than helpful. He always volunteered to take up the collection, sweep leaves or snow off the church steps when the occasion called for it, took his share of church envelopes — in the name of O’Byrne — and gave generously. Yet we wouldn’t see him for weeks at a time.

  “Then there was an incident, but it turned out to be nothing all that serious really. I didn’t see it as —” His voice faded out. I didn’t want to lose him now.

  “The incident, Father?” He didn’t reply. I had better go back under cover. “I’m just wondering whether it had anything to do with my cousin Cathal. I understood he knew this Declan Burke. Were they friendly with each other, as far as you could tell?”

  “Far as I could tell, they didn’t even know each other. Attended the same Sunday Mass, well, when O’Byrne — Burke — attended. I never saw them speak to each other, at least not that I can remember now. And Cathal certainly had nothing to do with the little dust-up that occurred with Burke.”

  “You’ve certainly got me curious here, Father. You see, I’m planning to try to track Mr. Burke down. And if there is something serious that I should know beforehand —”

  “No, from my point o
f view, it wasn’t all that serious. Though it wasn’t exactly kosher. What happened was Burke was taking up the collection as he always did when he came to us. And one of the other men in the parish — Ted Lawlor, God rest him — made an accusation against Burke. That he was stealing money from the collection! Now, I found that difficult to believe. My first thought was that Lawlor’s nose was out of joint because he liked to take up the collection himself and Burke always seemed to get to the baskets before he did. But Lawlor bustled over to me on the church steps after Mass one day and told me he saw Burke take an envelope from the basket and slip it into his pocket. Between you and me, I was wishing Burke had managed to drive away before my informant had reached me with the news! I tend to be the type who wants to avoid confrontation! But my parishioner left me no choice. I went down to the basement where the collection was tallied up after Mass, and Burke was just leaving. I was put in the embarrassing position of having to ask if he had taken anything from the basket. He looked at me and seemed to be thinking it over. I must tell you, I was a little intimidated for a moment there. He was a powerful-looking man. But he reached into his pocket, brought out an envelope and showed it to me. It had no name on it, just a check mark or something in ink. He slit it open and invited me to look inside. It wasn’t money at all! It was a sheaf of papers with numbers on them. The man was running some kind of numbers racket through the church! Which would explain why he was using a false name. Well, I didn’t know what to say. I tried to formulate a response but he spoke first.

  “I can’t remember his exact words. He apologized. Said it was all just a lark but he knew the temple of Christ was no place for that kind of game. He assured me in no uncertain terms that not one cent had been taken from the church. When he turned to go, he saw Ted Lawlor standing there. You should have seen the look he gave Ted! I later learned that Ted had followed Burke to his house one day, found out his real name and confronted him with the accusations! They had words, as you can imagine, and a bit of a shoving match. Ted told me a young girl was present and caught the whole exchange. Must have been a daughter. Ted felt bad about that part of it. But Burke was telling the truth when he said no money had been taken. We went back over our collections, matched envelopes with amounts collected, compared Sundays. No differences.