This led him to an obsession about his origins.
‘I had to know. I desperately wanted to know who my birth parents were. My adopted parents only knew so much. They gave me the names of Jim and Aidan. At the time of my adoption they had asked where I came from, but no one would tell them, so the rest was all speculation.’
‘Where did the connection with Charlene Butler come in?’ asked the detective.
‘I tracked down Jim O’Reilly. Unfortunately, he was dead, but I did my research. I knew about him leaving the bar to Charlie. I knew about his friendship with Pat Butler. And, when I found out Charlie was an only child, I started to wonder about her. I had been working with different websites for a few years. I knew where to look, and the more I looked the more I began to think she had been brought over from Ireland too.’
‘Why would that make you target her?’
‘My parents borrowed a lot of money to give to O’Reilly and Connelly so they could adopt me. We lived just slightly above the poverty line all my life. Yet, Charlie lived the good life. O’Reilly even left her a business, debt-free. It wasn’t fair. Why should she have all the luck?’
Charlie glanced at Simm to see if he found this as strange as she did. Paul blamed her for being adopted by the Butlers?
‘I started to think maybe if I poked the fire a little, I could get her to do the work for me,’ Paul continued. ‘And I was right. She hired that PI guy, and they went to Ireland. Then they talked about a journal, and I knew I had hit pay dirt.’
‘You sent her anonymous letters, you damaged her apartment, you kidnapped her dog,’ the detective said, counting off on his fingers. ‘You broke and entered Mr. Simmons’ apartment, and you vandalized the bar. You committed a lot of crimes in order to find your birth parents.’
‘Nobody was ever hurt. I had to know. I needed to know my roots. Maybe if I found my birth parents my life would be better.’
Charlie felt sorry for the parents who had loved and raised this man. He didn’t seem the least bit grateful for everything they had sacrificed for him.
‘Why didn’t you hire your own private investigator?’ the detective asked.
‘I can’t afford it. She can. Look, I know it was wrong, but I needed to know, and I was sure if I planted the seed, she would do something about it. It worked. She found the journal. Now all she has to do is give me what I want. It’s in there.’
Charlie was dumbfounded. He truly didn’t get it. He had harassed her and endangered her life. The trip to Dublin hadn’t been a barrel of monkeys. She still had nightmares about the abduction and had to sleep with a light on. Now, he expected her to give him everything he wanted, smile, and watch him walk away.
‘It’s not that simple, Paul. You’ve been arrested on a series of charges. You’re going to jail. As for the information you’re looking for, Ms. Butler would be quite within her rights not to give it to you, and I wouldn’t blame her a bit for not wanting to share.’
‘She’ll do it for Frank’s sake.’
‘I don’t think you’re Frank’s favorite person right now, so I wouldn’t count on it.’
Charlie felt a shaft of pain for Frank. She could only imagine how he felt at this point. Thank God he wasn’t here to listen to everything this clueless, self-centered person had to say.
‘I’ve seen enough,’ she said. She had to get away and try to come to terms with what had happened, and listening to Paul wasn’t making her feel any better. Yes, she was thankful he was caught, and she knew the letters and harassment would come to a stop, but the bad memories and the pain would linger for her and Frank. All because of the journal and the information it contained. She looked at Simm.
‘I think you were right. The names in that journal don’t really matter. As a matter of fact, they’re poisonous. It brought about all this,’ she said, waving her hand in the direction of the television. ‘I wish it had never existed.’
‘You can’t wish away something from the past. All you can do is put it aside and move on.’
Looking at the pain and understanding in his eyes, she knew he was not only talking about her situation.
Chapter 78:
Simm stared at his phone with his eyebrows drawn close together. It buzzed loudly, and Charlie wondered if he would answer or not.
He pushed the button, stood, and turned his back to her, walking to the other side of his living room.
‘Hello.’
Several seconds of silence followed his greeting. Charlie saw the stiffening of his shoulders and she had a sense of foreboding. What could it possibly be now? Paul had pleaded guilty to all the charges and was sitting in a jail at the moment. The case was closed, the pub was back in order, and for all intents and purposes, her life was supposed be ordinary again. She was now in the process of packing up the few belongings she had at Simm’s apartment to take back to her own home.
‘I’ll be there.’
Simm concentrated on the floor when he turned around, slowly pocketing his cell phone.
‘Who was that?’ Charlie said, surprised to find she held her breath as she asked the question.
‘Uh…’
‘Oh no, you don’t. Don’t even think of avoiding the question. I want the truth. What’s going on?’
Charlie knew it was bad news and she wanted him to pull off the band-aid quickly.
‘It was Sullivan.’
‘Marty Sullivan?’ Oh no.
‘He wants to meet me.’
‘You or us?’
He lifted his eyes to hers, and she had her answer.
‘When do we go?’
‘We have an hour to get there.’
A short argument followed as Simm tried to convince Charlie to stay behind and let him go alone. Simm lost that argument.
‘He specifically asked for me to come with you. What would be the point in you going alone? He’ll turn you away and tell you to go back and get me.’
‘I can convince him you weren’t available.’
‘Let’s go and finish this.’
Ten minutes later they were in the car, heading to the Port of Montreal and Marty Sullivan’s favorite haunt.
It may have been the same two men who met them outside the door, or it could have been two other copies. It seemed Marty liked to employ the same generic tough-guy look. After the search for weapons, they were led into the private room occupied by their boss.
Charlie pasted on a smile and tried to make the atmosphere genial, but Marty wasn’t having it. His expression was cold and stony. He nodded to the chairs at the table in front of him, and they got the message. They both sat stiffly and waited to hear the reason for the summons.
‘How was your trip to Ireland?’ Sullivan directed the harshly-spoken question to Simm.
‘It was interesting. Very informative.’
‘Did you find Connelly?’
‘We did. He wasn’t very helpful.’
Charlie saw a glimpse of a sardonic smile before it disappeared.
‘I don’t suppose he was. I have a feeling you met other people besides Connelly.’
‘A few, yes.’
‘I heard you got chummy with McGrath.’
‘Chummy isn’t a word I would use.’
Charlie jumped as Sullivan’s fist shot out and hit the table with a resounding bang.
‘Don’t bullshit me. What the hell is your game?’
‘How did you find out?’ Simm asked.
‘This is the twenty-first century. We don’t have to wait for the boat to cross the ocean to get news from the other side. I know a
lot of people on both sides.’
‘We had a run-in with McGrath. We were both abducted and separated. I didn’t know if Charlie was safe or not. He needed a promise that we would leave an embryo on your doorstep. I had to make him think it had been done.’
Charlie noticed how Simm had taken the blame for making the promise that she had, in fact, made. Simm reached into his pocket and took out an envelope that he tossed onto the table in front of them. Sullivan withdrew an identical copy of the fake newspaper article that had been sent to Colin McGrath. He read it attentively.
‘Clever.’
Simm remained silent. It was hard to tell if he offered a compliment or sarcasm.
‘But you forgot something. My honor demands I respond in kind.’
‘This is what we were hoping to avoid, a war between the two of you,’ Simm explained.
‘There’s always been bad feelings between us. We’re forever at war.’
‘We don’t want anything to happen to you or your son.’
For several tense moments, Simm and Sullivan stared at each other. Charlie held her breath. She hoped Sullivan didn’t take those words as a threat. Her gaze shifted quickly from one to the other, trying to evaluate Simm’s expression and Sullivan’s reaction.
‘Neither do I.’ Marty said, looking openly at Charlie. ‘I assume you discovered everything you needed to know in Dublin.’
‘Yes, we know everything. The person who was harassing me has been arrested. He was one of the children and he was very…misguided.’ She didn’t want to tell him they had also found a journal in Montreal. It had caused enough problems already.
Sullivan leaned back in his chair and joined his hands across his stomach.
‘It’s a very touchy situation, you understand. Some of those babies weren’t removed from their homes legally. We wouldn’t want people coming forward asking for their children back, would we?’’
Charlie hadn’t thought of that possibility, but it was a valid concern.
‘Mr. Sullivan?’ she asked. ‘Do you know about my particular circumstances? I mean, do you know who my biological parents were?’
He stared at her for a long moment.
‘No, I don’t. All I know is that your mother desperately wanted a daughter, and your father asked Jim to help them. But your father had misgivings about the process. Jim said he carried a lot of guilt.’
Charlie thought about her mother’s remarks and understood a little better what probably drove them apart. Her father hadn’t been about to cope with what he had done to provide a child for his wife.
‘So, what do we do now?’ Marty asked, directing his question to Simm. ‘I don’t feel like getting into an all-out war with McGrath either, but I can’t let him think I let something like that go by unnoticed.’
‘You can pretend you don’t know who did it,’ Charlie suggested.
‘Colin would know that I know.’
‘I have a suggestion,’ Simm said.
Chapter 79:
Simm had a bit of time to kill before things picked up at the pub. The bookkeeping was up to date, something he didn’t mind doing, and he had organized Charlie’s filing system. He smiled as he recalled how appreciative she had been when he told her he would take care of all those things for her from now on.
He turned to the computer again, thinking he hadn’t checked the new Facebook page since yesterday. Signing in, he was intrigued to see two notifications. Reading them, his smile grew larger.
‘Gotcha.’
‘Got who?’
Simm looked up to see Charlie sauntering into the room. He loved to see her new attitude, or rather her old attitude that had come back home. Gone was the stressed out, looking-over-her-shoulder Charlie. This one was relaxed and happy. She had come to terms with the fact that she was adopted. Although she wanted to return to Ireland someday, she wanted to do it as a tourist, not to find her birth parents. If they had given her up voluntarily, that was their choice. If she had been stolen from them, she didn’t want to dig up bad memories, or stir up the judicial system. Her adoptive parents had loved her, had possibly been driven apart because of the circumstances of her adoption, but she didn’t regret the life she had lived.
Of course, her acceptance of the circumstances of her birth wasn’t the only reason for her smile.
Charlie sat on Simm’s lap, wrapped her arm around his neck, and tugged him in for a very appealing kiss.
‘Who did you get?’ she asked again.
‘What? Oh. McGrath took the bait.’
‘He did?’ Charlie sat up straight and pinned her gaze on the computer. ‘What did he say?’
Simm pulled up the comments posted on the page.
‘He claims everything on the page is bullshit, and that it should be taken down by the authorities.’
‘That’s from someone named Donovan, not McGrath,’ Charlie said.
‘He’s using a false identity, but I know it’s him. He and Connelly are the only ones who have anything to lose.’
‘You’re sure they can’t trace this page back to you?’
‘Positive. My friend is an expert with this type of thing.’
‘You’re a genius,’ she said, giving him another kiss.
‘I’m glad it solved the problem. As long as McGrath thinks we can expose Aidan Connelly for what he is, and McGrath along with him, he won’t threaten Marty Sullivan again. And we stay in Marty’s good books.’
Simm was proud of his idea. Creating a Facebook page by the name of The Children of Ireland was his brainchild. The profile picture was a photo of a man with an eerie resemblance to Aidan Connelly, walking along a foggy street. Simm had enlisted the help of a computer geek friend to set it up. They had also posted false stories about children looking for their birth parents, using names and places only McGrath and Connelly would understand. Simm suspected the mafia member in Ireland was keeping the page a secret from Connelly, because the postings made it look like McGrath could be the instigator. He would let it play out for a while before taking the page down.
‘I just had a chat with Frank,’ Charlie said.
Simm directed his attention to her. He knew this was her last big worry.
‘How’s he doing?’
‘Better. He’s still hurting, and he has a lot of questions he’d like answers to, but I think I convinced him some questions are better left unanswered. He’s happy we won’t be pressing charges against Paul.’
‘You’re more generous than I would have been in your shoes.’
‘Paul experienced the same beginnings as I did, but his growing-up years were not as fortunate. I can’t forgive him, but I think I can understand. Besides, I want to do it for Frank. He may not want a future with Paul, but he doesn’t want to think of him as being incarcerated.’
‘Is he considering your other idea?’ Simm asked, smiling.
‘Yes, very seriously. I’m sure he’ll go for it.’
‘He’s hesitating because he’ll be separated from you.’
‘We’ll be separated physically, but regularly in touch. Besides, I know he’ll love managing his own place, and you’ll be running between the two.’
Simm looked forward to the partnership between the three of them, and the imminent purchase of another bar. Charlie would run Butler’s, and Frank would take care of the new one. Simm would be available for whatever was needed at both of them, on top of taking care of all the paperwork.
He had also reconciled with his siblings, and accepted enough of his inheritance, the inheritance he thought had been withdrawn from the will, to finance the purchase of the new estab
lishment. His days as a private investigator would soon come to an end, and his new life as the co-owner of a pair of Montreal Irish pubs would begin.
The last step in his plan was to marry his partner – the female one.
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Sins of the Fathers Page 26
