The Death of an Irish Lass

by Bartholomew Gill

  It was plain the old man would give in to his grief if McGarr let him dote on her death. “And boys—I mean, men. Was she popular with the men?”

  “You’ve got the snapshot in your hand, sir. You can tell by the look of her she’d be a favorite with any man, but there was more, too. It was, like I said, the way of her that mattered. It was partly because of how winning she was that made her emigrate, I believe. That and her not wanting to be a farmer’s wife, like she told us then.”

  McGarr kept staring at the old man, awaiting further explanation.

  Again Quirk tried the whiskey but couldn’t take more than a sip. “There wasn’t a young man in the county who wouldn’t have willingly made a marriage with her. First, there’s the farm. Whoever married May got all of it, for we have no other children. Had—” He closed his eyes and continued speaking. “And then there was May, too. Nothing ever seemed to get her down. She was always May.

  “The fellow next door approached me around the time she left.”

  “Jim Cleary?” McGarr asked.

  “None other. His father had just died and left him over a hundred and fifty acres on both sides of the road. Some of his land was good then, and he had a tractor, a herd of milk cows, and even a truck, as well as an automobile. On the face of it, it seemed a proper match.”

  O’Malley said, “Why, he was nearly forty when May left for America. Right now he’s just another old man in the local.”

  “Well, what eligible farmer isn’t? Wasn’t I thirty-eight myself before my father yielded me this place?”

  O’Malley only took a sip from his glass.

  “Anyhow, I asked May her opinion of Cleary. She said she didn’t rightly have one. He was an old man. When I told her why I was asking she blushed and then laughed. I explained to her how it was a wise match, how in these parts Cleary was considered a rich farmer. He was a hard worker and, it seems, he fancied her. She said she liked Jim Cleary very much as a neighbor and, you know, as an older friend. But Jim Cleary was not the sort of man she intended to marry.

  “‘Well then, who is?,’ I asked her. She said somebody strong and young and wild. Somebody with a dream. And courage, she added. I don’t know—maybe she saw too many picture shows in Ennis, read too many books, or dreamed too many of her own dreams. One thing was for certain, she was never going to be a farmer’s wife.

  “‘And what’s so wrong with being a farmer’s wife?,’ I asked her. ‘Isn’t your mother one?’ And so she told me and it was the only thing she ever told me without so much as a smile or some playfulness about her. She said if she married Jim Cleary she wouldn’t even own the dishes on the table or the farm that was her inheritance from me. Everything would go to Cleary and she’d be at his mercy. Then she’d have one child after another until she was spent, and she’d know nothing from nine months after marriage until the grave but steady hard work and service.

  “I said it was the fate of a countrywoman in the West of Ireland.

  “She said, ‘That’s just it, da. I don’t plan to be a countrywoman in the West of Ireland.’ And not long after that she left.”

  “Didn’t she have any beaus among the young men?”

  O’Malley answered that one. “As many young men as there were hereabouts.”

  “But anybody in particular?”

  O’Malley and Quirk exchanged glances. “Rory O’Connor,” said O’Malley, as though McGarr should know whom he meant. When after a few seconds of silence he realized that McGarr was waiting for an explanation, he added, “A big fellow. Wild as the west wind. Folks live out at the very tip of Nag’s Head. That’s not very far from the Cliffs—” O’Malley broke off. “You don’t suppose—”

  Quirk began to stand.

  O’Malley waved his hand at him so that he eased himself back into the cushion. “Couldn’t be. He left right before May did. Whole years ago.”

  “And she probably followed him, too, I bet,” said her father.

  “Do you have any proof of that?”

  “Not a bit of it, but May wouldn’t have mentioned a word of him to me.”

  O’Malley explained. “May had no favorites among the boys hereabouts but one—Rory O’Connor. And whereas he was big and handsome and likable in spite of all his foolishness, he was a wrecker if I ever met one. Raw as the place he hailed from—all emotion and strength and good looks and, some say, brains too, but not an ounce of discretion or concern for anybody but himself and—”

  “May,” said her father. “May too.” He again touched his lips to the whiskey.

  “But he wasn’t anxious to marry her.”

  “Nor she him!” said Quirk in a rush. “They just wanted to rush off together, away from here to a place where they could live the way they wanted. When I asked them which way that was and where the place might be, they didn’t have a clue. Just off they wanted to go together. And not married, mind you! Not so much as an engagement promise between them. May said that was the way she wanted it. That he wasn’t the sort of man a girl actually married. ‘Then what do you actually do with him,’ I asked. When she didn’t answer that, she didn’t get what she wanted. I went out to Nag’s Head and told O’Connor’s father how it was—that this was my only daughter and I wouldn’t suffer his son to ruin her, that if they would get married first I’d give them my blessing and eventually my farm too, but otherwise, his son Rory could go wherever it was he was heading alone.

  “Well, Jack O’Connor was a fair man, I don’t care what else has ever been said about him.”

  McGarr looked at O’Malley, who mouthed, “I.R.A.”

  “And he went into the barn, where Rory was stacking bales of hay. He was in there an hour. I heard them shouting and fighting and I didn’t dare go in to see what was what, because there’s no coming between a father and son, and as big as I was then, I was no match for either one of them alone.

  “When Jack staggered out of the barn, he was a mess. He said, ‘Rory’s leaving tomorrow, alone. You have my promise.’ And so he did. May never forgave me for that when she learned what had happened. And she too left the day after I admitted I had gone to see Rory’s father.”

  McGarr asked, “Has O’Connor ever returned?”

  “I don’t think so. His father died a few years back. The oldest son was lost at sea, and the old woman is living there alone. Whenever I’m out that way, I stop in to see her.” O’Malley got himself another drink.

  “Has she ever talked about her son Rory?”

  “Not a word. The way Jack dealt with him drove a wedge between husband and wife. Rory had been her favorite, you know. Her last son. She had spoiled him rotten, too. That’s why he was the way he was. He didn’t think there was anything he couldn’t or shouldn’t do. I wonder what happened to him and where he is now.”

  The phone began to ring.

  All three men began to stand.

  O’Malley said, “I’ll get it,” and went out to the kitchen.

  McGarr asked Quirk, “What was May’s occupation in New York?”

  Quirk began rubbing his forehead with the heel of his palm. McGarr could tell the old man was getting tired. His windburned skin was beginning to look waxy, and his eyes were bloodshot. “Ah—she tried one thing and another for a couple of years. Then she became a journalist, first for the United Irishmen, a paper in the States for narrowbacks, don’t you know. She became one of their editors in no time. May always had a way with words. And there was no denying her anything she wanted. If she insisted, she could get it out of you. She then joined the New York Daily News. Here.” He stood and went to the sideboard. “May sent us a copy of every paper that carried one of her major pieces.” He opened the doors of the sideboard, which was crammed full of newspapers. “I don’t pretend to have read them all. It made me sick being reminded of how she’d probably never return.” He took one of the top papers and handed it to McGarr. He was crying now. He walked out of the room, into the hall.

  The newspaper had a tabloid format. The front page p
ictured a black young man sprawled on a sidewalk with a large white policeman standing over him. The officer carried a riot shotgun and was wearing a helmet with a clear face shield that made him look like a robot. The block capital letters read, “COPS IN BED. STUY. CAUSE RIOTS,” and the caption under the full-page picture read, “So Say Black Caucus Leaders. Story by May Quirk, page 2.”

  McGarr skimmed the article, written in the short, punchy writing style that some American newspapers favored. The article wasn’t long, but the questions May Quirk had asked the black leaders revealed that they had little evidence to support their contention. One picture showed her interviewing a man on the steps of a brownstone. McGarr glanced at the date—June 22, 1969. May Quirk was about twenty-three then, and the editor had doubtless selected the picture not because the man being interviewed was important but because the people who read the paper liked to see pretty girls. She had her left hand on her hip, one foot on the ground, and the other on the first stair. The picture was shot from the side. It looked like she was taunting the big black man with the prospect of her upper body. He looked like a hairy, unkempt rabblerouser, she like a fine piece of work who was showing him up in every sense. But he was smiling at her too, a smile that seemed foolish.

  O’Malley was standing in the door. “I’m wanted across the way. It’s Cleary. He’s having trouble.”

  McGarr put the paper aside. “Of what sort?”

  “They say he’s been raving around. He broke up all the furniture in the house last night and burned it and his old car out in the yard.”

  McGarr himself had seen a smoldering fire when they had passed by. The shell of the car had looked like a Triumph Herald.

  “His cousin found him sitting against the kitchen wall in a stupor. He hasn’t really been eating well, you know. Lives alone. Doesn’t do much of anything anymore. Rented out his good land to some wheat farmers from Wexford. They poured on chemicals and used it up. Now it’s going back to bush.”

  McGarr pulled himself out of the chair. “I’ll go with you, if you think the Quirks will be all right.”

  “Your inspector wants to talk to you first.”

  It was Hughie Ward. He said, “Bernie got ahold of Scannell. You know, he’s the one Hanly says cashed his foreign currency. Well, it’s true, but not in big amounts. Five-and ten-dollar bills and never more than a couple hundred pounds’ worth at a time.

  “Then I’ve been around to the bars to check on the bottle of C. C. I got a warm welcome in the one you stopped in to.”

  “Tried to poison you, did they?” McGarr asked, keeping his voice very low indeed.

  “Jasus,” said Ward. “I’ve been drinking tea since I returned. But listen to this—not one publican in Lahinch has sold anybody a quart of C. C. in months. Hanly lied to us there, too.”

  McGarr also knew Hanly had lied to them two other times about how his car had come to be damaged, but he wanted to confront Hanly himself with that evidence. “Where’s Hanly now?”

  “In the next room. Liam has him. I don’t know what he’s got against that fellow, but he’s leaning on him hard.”

  McGarr thought of May Quirk again and knew how O’Shaughnessy felt. If a low type like Hanly was responsible for May Quirk’s death, McGarr would be put out himself. “Good enough. That gobshite is keeping something from us and I want to know what it is and why. Keep drinking that tea, boy, and spell Liam after a bit. I’ll be there myself in a while.”

  “And McAnulty has been in touch with Phoenix Park.” That was the site of Garda Soichana headquarters. “He wants funding permission to search the area below the Cliffs of Moher. Wants to hire some riggers and a mountain-climbing expert. He’s also alerted the subaquatic unit. He said you’ve requested all that. The commissioner wants you to call him at his holiday house in Cork. Do you have his number?”

  “Yes.” McGarr hung up and called the commissioner.

  “I’ve been waiting for your call.” Fergus Farrell had hired McGarr. He was a gifted administrator in his late fifties. Rumor had it that he had stomach cancer. He was a tall man with large eyes that tortoiseshell glasses made look sad, but he never once mentioned his malady or missed a day of work. And his sense of humor was renowned. True, he drank a good deal so that his face, which some former skin condition had pitted, was red, but he never got out of the way or lost his sagacity. “What have you got out there?”

  “A chance for some good publicity, I believe.” Again McGarr kept his voice down.

  “We need that.” Because of the trouble in the North, the recent bombings in Dublin, and the seeming impunity with which gangs on either side of the political issue had been shooting each other along the border, it appeared as though the police were powerless to enforce the laws of the country. The thousands of crimes they had solved during the past year had of course not gotten the same attention in the press. Good news didn’t sell newspapers.

  McGarr thought of May Quirk. “I think I can promise you some results on this one.”

  “What do you know about the woman so far?”

  “Tall, beautiful, a staff reporter for a big New York newspaper. Born and raised here in Lahinch. She may have been pregnant. She had twenty-seven thousand dollars on her person. Also, she was connected with an I.R.A. fund raiser in New York. The connection may have been romantic only, however.”

  “The papers will be making a big thing of this one,” said Farrell. “They always do when it’s one of their own. But then there’s the expense of your request to consider. They could make a lot of that too, if—”

  McGarr waited for Farrell to conclude the thought. He hadn’t managed to rise to the top of three separate police organizations by being a skilled detective alone. When Farrell said nothing more, McGarr suggested, “Perhaps then we’d better make it look like we’re breaking our backs on it. You know—as though we wouldn’t want it to happen again to any other members of the glorious fourth estate.” Also, McGarr wanted to bring Farrell in on the decision, just in case they spent large amounts of public money with no result. Many senior Garda Soichana officers resented the fact that McGarr hadn’t passed his entire career with the Irish police. Because he had been with foreign police agencies, McGarr had not been involved in domestic cases that might have revealed his political leanings. And since his return to Ireland, McGarr had taken great pains never to reveal his political point of view. Thus, he had enjoyed an extraordinary press from nearly all Irish sources.

  “If you think the operation is necessary.” Farrell wasn’t anybody’s fool either. They were close, the two of them, but it was the affection that was built of mutual respect. If one of them had to go, there was no sense in the other being sacrificed too.

  McGarr could have said, “McAnulty thinks so,” but he didn’t. He was sick of playing the organizational game, and he also really wanted to nab May Quirk’s killer. “Yes—it’s necessary. The dirty bastard who did this is going to the gallows, as far as I’m concerned.” McGarr hung up.

  McGarr was glad he had said that. When he turned around, he found John Quirk right behind him, lighting the top of the cooker for tea. The old man reached out his hand and shook McGarr’s long and hard. “Thank you for everything, Inspector. You’re the man for the job, all right. Would you care for a cup of tea?”

  McGarr shook his head and left.

  He was glad to get outside where the air was clear.

  FOUR

  Country Ills and a Country Doctor

  THE COLOR OF the house across the road was not much different from the stones of the surrounding fields and hills—a drab, weathered gray. It was as though the great pitted rock that was Clare was reaching up to reclaim the materials from which the house had been made and eventually would subsume the mean, three-story dwelling. And it wouldn’t be much of a shame, either, McGarr thought, since the building was an offense to both the eye and the persons who had the misfortune to live in it. McGarr knew its narrow windows made the interior dim and kept the rooms damp and mildew
y, and that it was a cold, drear place in the winter but funky and hot in the summer. Several slates had been knocked off the roof and a quarter of the central chimney had fallen in a chunk onto the lawn.

  Stepping out of the Cooper, McGarr and O’Malley had to walk carefully to avoid the cow pies that lay everywhere about the yard. Of the two towering cedar trees out front the nearer was dead, its needles gone and only the spiny skeleton remaining. The farther one was diseased and looking as though it was suffering from a special sort of arboreal mange. The grazing animals had not bothered with the grass against the side of the house. It clung to the foundation and mortar like a scraggly blonding beard on an old man’s chin. There were two other autos in the yard—a Garda patrol car and an ambulance. The hulk of the Triumph Herald was still smoldering.

  They stepped into the kitchen and McGarr had to catch his breath, step outside, and breathe again. The dank interior had the smell of a barn—ammoniac, pungent, the reek of animals and wet rotting straw. He ducked back in again.

  Sitting in a battered rocking chair near an Aladdin paraffin fire, which a guard was trying to make burn evenly, was a man who looked crazed or ill or drunk. He had thrown his head of matted, greasy hair back on the rocker and was twisting his face from side to side. A patchy gray beard stubbled his face. McGarr guessed he was a very old fifty-five. A medical man was leaning over him, attempting to direct the beam of a small light into his eyes.

  There was not one other item of furniture in the room besides the kitchen sink, which was filled with shards of broken dishes. Everywhere around the floor were newspapers so thick they felt spongy underfoot. The far window also had been covered by newspapers. McGarr poked his head into the adjoining sitting room. Newspapers covered those windows, too. In the dim yellow light he could see rusting food tins in a corner with some more broken dishes and pots. Heaps of newspapers were there too, but again not a stick of furniture. And that room was the source of most of the stench. Piss, McGarr thought. James Cleary hadn’t been bothering to go outside.