Black Irish

by Stephan Talty

  They called South Buffalo the Twenty-Seventh County, or the County for short, a patch of Ireland in the wilds of America. Blacks need not apply; strangers, be on your way; and faggot, can you outrun a bullet? Back in high school, her neighbors the Sheehans hadn’t even let that poor redheaded kid John Connell come on their porch to pick up their daughter Moira for the freshman dance. Not because he was Italian or German or, God forbid, Puerto Rican, not because he was too poor or addicted to alcohol or sexually suspect or pockmarked by acne. No. It turned out his family was from the wrong part of Ireland, Abbie’s friends patiently explained to her afterward. The Connells were from Mayo and the Sheehans were pure Kilkenny. “D’ya get it now? He’s the wrong county; the Sheehans won’t have a Mayo boy on their doorstep.” Their faces shiny with concern, emphatic that she should understand the intricacies of Irish-American dating.

  “Yep,” she’d told them. “I get it now.”

  Inside, she’d thought, Looks like I can forget about getting a date in high school. And she’d been right. Her raven-black hair, which was only accentuated by her pale skin and sky-blue eyes, her long-dead drug-addicted mother, and her unknown father had doomed her to a life as an outsider in the County, where ancestry was everything. She remembered the moment as the beginning of her disastrous romantic history, and probably her sharp tongue, too.

  That had been in the nineties. Things were different now, people said. There were even a few blacks and Latinos sprinkled among the County’s population, though you never seemed to see them walking the streets. Maybe they carpooled for safety and conversation.

  But some parts of the neighborhood never changed. The clannish logic. The hostility to outsiders. The secret, ancient warmth. The alcoholism.

  As her partner, Z, said whenever someone from this part of the city did something completely inexplicable or self-destructive: “WATC.”

  “We are the County.”

  No other explanation necessary. Or possible.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ABBIE CROSSED SOUTH PARK AVENUE. WHEN SHE GOT TO MCKINLEY AT the corner of Bishop Timon High School, she turned the wheel right and two minutes later was standing in front of the house on Orchard Street. It was a two-story wood-frame house, with fresh light green paint on the front and and a newish Big Wheel in the front yard. She grabbed her notebook and went in.

  The wooden front door was open. Abbie pulled open the screen door and saw to the right a bean pole of a cop with a large beak for a nose, standing with his hands behind his back as if he was guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier. Had to be McDonough. When he saw her, he nodded and tilted his head to the right. As Abbie stepped onto the tan shag carpet, she saw the arm of a couch, and then two legs in a pair of sweatpants, a Notre Dame T-shirt, and then the rest of Patty Ryan. She was sitting mutely, tissue clutched in one upturned and closed hand that rested in the palm of the other. She looked up.

  She’d been pretty, once. The face of the high school girl slowly being submerged in fat. She looked about thirty-eight, ten years younger than her husband.

  “Mrs. Ryan?”

  Patty Ryan nodded, staring at her.

  McDonough stepped into the silence. “Patty’s husband Jimmy hasn’t been home for two days and hasn’t called. His cell phone is going straight to voice mail. She says he—”

  “He’s dead,” Patty said. “I know he is.”

  “I hope that isn’t true,” Abbie said, “but we need to figure this out. Can I sit?”

  You couldn’t say “may I” in the County or they’d look at you like you’d just arrived from Buckingham Palace. And spit in your eye.

  Patty was about to say something, but she stopped. Her dark blue eyes bored into Abbie’s. She’s probably never asked an outsider for help before, Abbie thought. Doesn’t know how it’s done.

  But need overruled everything else. Patty gestured robotically toward a corduroy-covered recliner. Abbie walked over, lifted a plastic truck from the seat, and sat down, placing the truck by her right foot.

  “When was the last time you spoke to your husband?”

  “Monday.” Patty stared straight ahead at a point over Abbie’s right shoulder.

  “On the phone?”

  Patty looked at Abbie and nodded. Then her gaze returned to its spot.

  “How did he—”

  “Fine. He sounded fine.”

  “Okay. Where was he calling from?”

  “From his route. For National Grid. Checking gas meters.”

  “Was he wearing his uniform?”

  A quick nod. Her shoulders were hunched over her chest, and her arms were now wrapped around her body, her chin down. It was as if she was coiled around something, trying to keep it from exploding into the room.

  “I ironed it the night before. Jim liked to look good. He was a proud person.”

  “Was there anything unusual about Jim that day?”

  She shook her head.

  “What about in the last few weeks?”

  She muttered, “No.”

  Abbie nodded, then let silence flood into the room. The woman was on autopilot; Abbie had to shake her out of her waking coma.

  Patty’s eyes goggled at the wall, then she seemed to become aware of the silence. Her eyes shifted left and met Abbie’s, who caught her gaze and leaned forward.

  “Why do you believe your husband’s dead?”

  “A feeling. Felt it on Monday afternoon. It was …”

  A tear appeared at the corner of Patty’s right eye. It caught the lower eyelash and swung over, finally dropping onto the darkened skin around her eyes and starting down. There was something past caring in her look, like an animal tracked to its lair that is too exhausted to fight anymore.

  “It was like Jim saying he was sorry.”

  Abbie nodded slowly. “Sorry for what?”

  “For leaving me, for leaving the kids. For the two mortgages on this shitty house, maybe. For the Catholic school bills that I won’t be able to pay anymore. For last Valentine’s Day, when he got drunk and slammed me into the living room wall. Is that enough?”

  “That’s plenty. Was there anything else he could be sorry for? Something not to do with you and him?”

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” Quick.

  “Was there anyone who might have wanted to harm Jim? That bore a grudge?”

  Patty was on it fast.

  “ ‘Bore a grudge’? What’s that mean?”

  “It means, was somebody ang—”

  “You sound like someone from New York or somethin’.”

  That wasn’t an observation here. It was an accusation.

  “Let’s talk about Jim.”

  “Where you from?” Her chin poked up and now her eyes were dry and hard.

  “Does it matter?”

  “To me it does.”

  “Okay then,” Abbie said, closing her notebook and staring at Patty. “I grew up five blocks from here.”

  “That’s imposs—”

  Her face, curling into a snarl of disbelief, suddenly went slack.

  “You’re Absalom Kearney,” she said softly.

  “That’s right.”

  Patty looked like she wanted to jump through her skin. She pointed at McDonough and turned her head, her eyes accusing.

  “Why’d he say you were Detective Marcus?”

  “That’s my married name. I don’t use it anymore.”

  She glanced up at McDonough.

  “And no one else is supposed to, either.”

  McDonough looked away, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “You still married?” The woman said in a dead voice.

  Abbie’s bright blue eyes grew still. Then she shook her head no.

  “And you came back here to take care o’ your father?”

  “Yes, I came back here to take care of my father.”

  Only half a lie.

  Patty regarded her, her eyes weighing what she’d just heard, growing softer.

  “That’s good. Maybe
… maybe you’d understand.”

  “Understand what exactly?”

  Patty made a slow twirling motion with her right index finger.

  “Around here.”

  Patty’s gaze fell to the carpet, a tan shag with lines of intersecting brown and black. Her eyes searched the patterns there. Then she got up.

  “I never offered you anything.”

  “That’s okay. Really.”

  The woman stood still, then turned.

  “Just tell me what’s bothering you,” Abbie said. “I want to find your husband.”

  Instead of coming back to the couch, Patty shuffled to the fireplace. On the mantel the family photos, turned at different angles to the room.

  Patty walked down the four feet of the wooden mantel, tapping on the white painted top absentmindedly. She paused by the first photo: her in a big white dress, thirty pounds lighter, beaming and holding the hand of a brown-haired man. Her finger touched the man’s face and then glided down the glass. She took another two steps and got to the last photo. Abbie stood quickly, but Patty pulled the frame to her belly, blocking Abbie’s view.

  Patty stared at the wall above the mantel, hesitated, then glanced down at the photo before pressing it again to her body.

  “Was your husband good to you, Detective Kearney?” she said, still turned away.

  “Not really. He was good to himself, and then I got what was left over. How about Jimmy?”

  “Jim wasn’t no good either, tell you the truth. When we’d fight, he’d threaten to leave me, and I’d say to him, ‘You’ve been leaving ever since we were married.’ ”

  Patty turned, the picture held tight to her stomach, facing away from Abbie.

  “You’ve been leaving me ever since you got here. Y’know?”

  That almost-Canadian inflection in the phrase. Y’know.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “But now that he’s gone, I want you to bring him back to me. Then …”

  The hand holding the picture dropped to her side. Patty began to walk out of the room.

  “Then I’ll know what to do.”

  Abbie watched her go.

  McDonough turned and made the crazy sign by the side of his head.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ABBIE WALKED OUTSIDE AND THE COLD AIR FELT LIKE IT WAS CUTTING ICE rings into her lungs. McDonough came up behind her.

  “What a freak show. She’s lost it.”

  Abbie turned to look at him, her eyes burning. “No, Officer, she hasn’t lost it. And if you pull that hand-gesture stuff again, I’ll see you do midnights on the East Side all winter. You up for that?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  McDonough coughed.

  “You really think he’s dead?”

  Abbie looked up and down the street of tiny cottages, rusting American cars, and small Toyota compacts.

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  McDonough shook his head. “I don’t see it.”

  Abbie’s eyebrow arched. McDonough fidgeted and pulled his broad blue police hat tight over his flushed forehead.

  “I’m one test away from getting my detective shield. And when I get it, I’ve put in my request to work with you, Detective Mar—um, Kearney. Tell you the truth, about half of my graduating class did.”

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  McDonough shrugged. “They say you’re the best since your father retired, that maybe you’re even better than him. And in the County, that’s saying something. Your dad was the fucking gold—”

  “McDonough?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Which photo did she choose?”

  “Huh?”

  “You say you want to be a detective, so I’m asking you, which photo did Patty Ryan take off the mantel when we were talking about her husband? You did notice she took one down, didn’t you?”

  “Um, sure.” He kicked the snow on the porch.

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “Was it the wedding photo?”

  Abbie turned away. “No, it wasn’t. And that’s what makes it interesting. Women always go for the wedding picture, because if you know anything about marriages, the wedding is almost always the high point for them. Men will almost always pick a photo from when they first met. Don’t ask me why.”

  “So you’re saying she took a different one?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”

  McDonough looked vacantly at the street and shook his head. Abbie sighed.

  “It was a five-by-eight of three men, the man to the right with his back turned, the man to the left probably Jimmy Ryan, the middle one balding. Judging by the difference between Ryan’s current photo and this one, it might have been ten or fifteen years ago. The three were standing on the lakeshore, probably facing the Canadian side, judging from the angle of the sun on the Peace Bridge to the right.”

  Abbie slapped her notebook against her thigh.

  “And, damn it, she walked away with it.”

  “So why didn’t you ask to see it?”

  “Because she wouldn’t have shown me. And she would have known that I know. And I don’t want that yet.”

  McDonough was staring at her with a dazed expression.

  “Know what?! What is it that you know?”

  Abbie sighed. Back in the County. The shadows, the undertones, the whatever you want to call it, were thicker here than in a Louisiana swamp. She felt it press down on her chest, the old familiar claustrophobia.

  Why had she come back? On good days, it was to take care of her father, and to finally discover who she was, as corny as that sounded. Because she hadn’t found it anywhere else, not at Harvard, not in Miami.

  And this was the last place left to look.

  On bad days, it was because she felt at home in the city’s windswept emptiness; its air of desolation suited her own.

  She heard McDonough cough.

  “If Jimmy Ryan is dead,” Abbie said, shaking off her reverie, “then Patty has a good feeling why he’s dead.”

  “No shit! Is that what she meant when she said, ‘Then I’ll know what to do’? Is she going to war or something?”

  “Listen to what the woman said, McDonough. And how she said it. Did she seem angry?”

  “No.”

  “How would you characterize her demeanor?”

  “More like, um, depressed.”

  Abbie nodded. “Very good. I think she’s talking about burying Jimmy. Taking care of him one last time. It’s as if she’s already mourning him.”

  McDonough smiled. “Or killing the fuck who did it, more like it.”

  Abbie felt the overwhelming urge to punch McDonough in the stomach. If there was one cop like him on the force, there were fifty. “If you think she’s a lunatic, a crazy woman you can laugh at and ignore, you’re going to miss something. And if that happens, I’ll make you sorry you ever put on the uniform. Is that understood?”

  McDonough nodded.

  “Good. I want you to start on your sweep. Get his picture out. The TV stations, the Buffalo News, the South Buffalo Post, websites, everything.”

  McDonough scribbled in his notebook as Abbie headed to her car.

  The County was divided into a long grid. There were four parallel main avenues that radiated out from downtown Buffalo, each with its own particular history. South Park was closest to Lake Erie, and it had been rough as long as people could remember. The legend was that there were more bars per square foot than anywhere else in the country except Reno, Nevada, but so many opened and closed every month that the number was in constant flux. South Park had biker bars, Irish bars, country and western bars, cop bars, old man bars, fireman bars, heavy metal bars, strip bars, steel plant bars (now welfare bars), bartender bars, hooker bars, and freak bars. A freak bar was a druggie bar.

  Next came McKinley Avenue, broad and green. In its heyday it had been the best street in the County. Firemen with two jobs on the side dreamt of owning a house there, with its rich lawns, mowed by t
heir owners—the County had never gotten rich enough to import immigrants to care for its hedges—sloping down to an elm-lined avenue. The major corners were anchored by huge, broad-shouldered homes built in the forties and fifties, and the two schools that parents worked two and three jobs to send their kids to. Bishop Timon for boys, Mount Mercy for girls (including Abbie, class of ’98). The schools were still there, but the paint was peeling from the signs and drugs were slipping into the polished corridors.

  Abbott Road was her old haunt, the working-class avenue where high school kids colonized every corner on weekend nights and raised hell. It had been Abbie’s second home for her high school years.

  Then came Seneca Street, which was descending into some kind of open-air prison. Cops didn’t want to work Seneca anymore; too violent, too disturbing. Abbie tried not to think about it, honestly. It had once been a nice busy street, with hardworking families hoping to graduate to Abbott Road or move out to the suburbs. But now it was like a concrete patch of Appalachia. For all Abbie knew, they were having human cockfights behind the convenience stores.

  Abbie worked out a grid in McDonough’s squad car and four people began walking it—McDonough, Juskiewicz, Abbie, and her partner, Z, short for Zangara. Frank Zangara was a homegrown product, like 95 percent of the cops in Buffalo, but he was from the West Side, a black-haired Sicilian in the Department’s sea of brown-haired Celts and redheads. They’d called him Animal until he reached sophomore year in high school and shot up to 250 pounds of muscle by working out in his basement gym while everyone else was running wild in the local parks, strapping cases of Stroh’s beer to their backs with belts and walking around like astronauts with their life packs. After he’d gotten big, they’d still called him Animal, but with respect.

  “This guy’s probably in Vegas spending his 401k money,” Z said as they tramped through knee-high snow on South Park. There’d been a rash of those going around, husbands leaving wives or wives leaving husbands, without explanation or forwarding addresses.