“Uh-huh, Mr. Weber.”
“Your Honor, these two young men have never been charged before. They are executives of a major Chicago-area corporation. They both attended Loyola Academy with honors and Notre Dame and played on the football teams at both schools. Patrick O’Sullivan was honorable mention all-American. The incident was the result of a grave misunderstanding …”
“Save it for the trial, Mr. Weber. Bail is set at a hundred thousand for each.” She pounded her gavel as vigorous punctuation. “Next case.”
“I wouldn’t want to appear before her,” I murmured to my sister.
“She’s a cupcake. She just doesn’t like the looks of those two thugs.”
In the corridor, Simon Weber spotted my sister.
“Cindy Hurley, this is an unexpected pleasure. You look more lovely every time I see you. Your children are well, I trust.”
“They’re fine, Simon. Thank you … Now let’s cut the crap. I’m appearing for the victim. He’ll have a lot to say during the trial …”
“Mr. Dermot Coyne.” He extended his hand to me. “Not the famous poet?”
“I don’t know how famous, sir.”
“I have been following your sequence on American festivals in Poetry. Excellent work, sir … I’m delighted to see you are not as seriously injured as my two clients.”
“Like I say, Simon, cut the crap. My client is a gentle, poetic soul. He was acting only in self-defense, a point I will make in the civil trial after the criminal trial.”
A quick rebound by my sister, who had no idea that I wrote poems that other people, even attorneys, read.
“My dear Cindy,” the words oozed out of him like sunscreen, “surely you know that there won’t be a criminal trial. The state’s attorney and I will work out a satisfactory plea.”
“If it is not satisfactory to us, we’ll be in court the next day with civil charges.”
“I see … What might a satisfactory plea look like to you?”
“One felony charge for what they tried to do to my client, big fine, probation, couple of hundred hours of community service.”
“Jail?”
“No.”
“Ah, Cindy my dear, you always were one to understand the quality of mercy, even if it be strained just a little. I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’d better.”
“And, Mr. Coyne, it is an absolute delight to meet you. I trust we can look forward to a small book of festivals in the near future?”
“I’m working on the page proofs.”
“What did that all mean?” I asked Cindy, when Simon Weber glided down the corridor, oozing his charm to everyone he met.
“It meant that I feel like an idiot for not realizing that you are a famous poet.”
“Not as famous as my wife.”
“Regardless. It also meant that the case is as good as settled as far as we’re concerned. It’s a tough penalty. The cops will be satisfied and we won’t make martyrs of the two goofs. If they try to mess with you again, they’ll go straight to jail. We’ll also have the option to seek redress in a civil suit.”
“Don’t think you’re going to get away with this, Coyne.” John Patrick O’Sullivan grabbed the designer shirt my wife had bought for me (in her endless crusade to make me chic), spun me around, and shoved his face against mine. “I’m going to nail your ass to the wall before we’re finished. And we’ll get that bitch of a wife of yours too.”
“Dad!” Maura Creaghan begged him, “Just don’t say anything more, not a word. Please. And release Mr. Coyne. You’re a step away from being indicted yourself.”
John Patrick O’Sullivan released me, snorted derisively, and strode away, as though he had won the encounter.
“Half a step,” my sister said. “We note the threat and the gesture and reserve the right to seek redress at a subsequent date.”
Maura Creaghan was even more beautiful up close. She was also vulnerable and weary, not the bitch that Minor, Grey had rejected as a partner.
“Sorry, Cindy,” she murmured.
“I also note that you hired a decent lawyer for these two thugs. Not exactly what you did for your youngest brother, which was an obstruction of justice by an officer of the court. No wonder you weren’t promoted. In fact you should be disbarred. I might just notice you to the ethics board of the Bar Association.”
Maura recoiled like someone had punched her in the stomach. Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away.
“You certainly kicked her in the teeth,” I said to Cindy as we left the courthouse.
“She deserves it … Do you guys know who drove over that poor man five years ago?”
“Nuala does. She always does.”
“What does she want this time if she’s right?”
“A Lincoln Navigator.”
She laughed.
“Does she need your permission?”
“Certainly not.”
“Ask her where she’s going to park it … Does Maura know who did it?”
“I don’t see how she doesn’t know.”
“That’s accessory after the fact to murder. She should be indicted as well as disbarred.”
“Don’t go after her until we clear this matter up.”
“Why so concerned about the bitch?”
“She has a husband and a son and has a chance of surviving what their terrible father has done to all of them.”
“OK, your call. Sometimes I think you’re an even better priest than George … And, Dermot, I’m sorry I didn’t realize that you’re a famous poet. Would you ever send me a copy of that book when it appears?”
“I might even autograph it.”
Back at the house, Nuala, in white shorts and a green sweatshirt with a mock Book of Kells script that said “Nuala Anne,” was busy packing for the ultimate logistical move to Grand Beach as well as “preplanning” (her word) for the trip to Ireland. She stood in the middle of chaos with a clipboard and gave directions to Danuta and Ethne, who obeyed her instructions without question. I was impressed.
Ethne would come to the Lake with us and go back to Ireland, where she would see her family again. Danuta would have the whole summer off with pay and would return to Poland to visit her family. I’m sure that Nuala Anne had provided the ticket for her flight. Also “one of dem international phone dings for Ethne” so she can stay in touch with Damian during our Irish interlude.
“I take it that Madame says you need no more lessons from her in this go-around?”
“Madame is wrong. My voice is terrible. I’m going to cancel the concert on the mall and retire.”
“You’re not.”
“I am so … Ethne, will you make sure that the kids’ clothes are packed for the D.C. trip. We’ll just have to rush in, pick them up, then rush to the airport.”
She looked up and gave me a dirty look.
“Tell me about the day in court.”
So I did, imitating all the actors. My wife relaxed and laughed. Then when I told her of Cindy’s harsh words about Maura, she frowned.
“She won’t really do that, will she?”
“Not unless we give permission.”
“I never met the woman, but I think, from what her husband says, she might have a chance. We have to save some of them, don’t we Dermot Michael?”
“We do:”
“There’s so many bad things that are happening to them.”
“Is this the worst?”
“No, no, the worst is yet to come. I don’t know what it is, but it will be terrible.”
“Can we save all of them?”
“No, Dermot, we can try, but it’s too late. There’s so much evil. Now would you ever please help me with all this stuff?”
What else does a good husband do?
“You sure she wasn’t a bitch? You’re not saying that just because she’s attractive?”
“All attractive women tend to be bitchy,” I lied, “present company excepted of course. This one might have
thought she had to be bitchy, but it was probably an act to prove how tough she was.”
Nuala nodded.
“Not much hope. It’s all dark.”
I had never found a way to join my beloved in that part of herself where she was fey. I could sympathize but only as an outsider. However, it was usually not fun.
We were due to make the season’s pilgrimage to Grand Beach on Friday. The continuing heat and humidity did nothing for my wife’s bad humor. I knew that she’d get over it at the Lake. And several times each day she apologized to all of us for being a “terrible friggin’ shanty Irish bitch.”
“Your family’s house in Ireland isn’t a shanty,” I would say.
“You never saw the one in which I was raised.”
The plan was that we were to leave early on Friday morning. Nuala and Ethne and the kids and most of the luggage would go up first in the Grand Cherokee. I would follow in my old Benz with the rest of the luggage and the two hounds.
They like riding in the car and never asked whether we were there yet. But after the first hour or so, they got kind of restless.
We had to change the plans when Cindy called to tell me that the judge would deliver his response to our motion for a new trial on Friday morning. Damian had permission from his parole officer to spend Sunday at the Lake. He’d rent a car. He agreed to come home with me after the hearing—in the Richard J. Daley Center—and give the dogs a final run before we piled them into the Benz.
The hearing was set for ten. Judge Mikolitis emerged from his chambers at ten-thirty.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he murmured as he ascended his bench. “Something came up on another case.”
The only ones in the courtroom were the young state’s attorney, the judge, Cindy, Damian, the judge’s bailiff and court reporter, and meself.
“I really have no choice but to grant a motion for a new trial,” he began. “Obviously the new evidence is substantial. So I grant the motion … Mr. State’s Attorney, are you going to move for dismissal?”
“Yes, Your Honor. Patently there’s no evidence against the defendant.”
“Well, I’ll grant that motion too. You have it in writing?”
“I do, Your Honor.”
“I’ll issue my decision formally before the day is over. Young man, you should enjoy a happy weekend.”
“Yes, Your Honor, thank you, Your Honor.”
“I hope you never drink that much again.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
He leaned back in his big chair.
“I really have no choice. Clearly a mistake was made in the plea bargain. I was most uneasy with it. That’s why I changed the agreement from five years in prison to five years’ probation. I had the sense, Damian, that your family was not happy with that change.”
“I was too confused to notice, Your Honor.”
Even now he was confused, hardly able to believe that his family wanted to send him to jail.
“I can’t escape the impression that you might have been the designated fall guy.”
“I don’t know, Your Honor.”
“Mr. State’s Attorney, I smell in these documents the scent of obstruction of justice, malpractice, conspiracy. I suggest your office failed to smell them five years ago.”
“A different state’s attorney, Your Honor.”
“So I understand, so I understand.”
He thought for a moment.
“I assume that this case will be formally reopened.”
“Of course, Your Honor. After all these years, it won’t be easy …”
“I am aware of that fact. Patently your predecessors were delighted with a plea that gave them more than they would have ever gained in a trial and did not look too closely at the matter.”
“That’s not for me to judge, Your Honor.”
“Of course not.”
“Very well. Congratulations on your new freedom, Mr. O’Sullivan. I regret that it was denied you unjustly for so long.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” we all said in chorus.
“Next case.”
“Are you guys going to go after the family?” Cindy asked the state’s attorney as we left the courtroom.
He hesitated.
“I kind of doubt it, Cindy. Not unless we find some more clues. After all these years. You might want to file a civil suit against the lawyer for malpractice and implicate the family. That would be kind of dicey, it seems to me.”
“I just want it to be over,” Damian said. “Can’t we just forget about it?”
“If that’s what you want, Damian, I’m your lawyer. I’ll do what you say.”
He thought about it longer than I expected.
“What’s it that Shakespeare says, ‘leave them to heaven’?”
“My brother is the poet.”
“They’re going through a lot of trouble now. I don’t want to make it worse for them just to get even.”
Cindy nodded. “Good man, Damian … See you at the Lake this weekend, li’l bro?”
“God willing … Oh, will they notify the probation people?”
“I’ll see to that this afternoon.”
“Thanks very much, Ms. Hurley. I’ll always be grateful.”
“It’s been fun, Damian.”
An hour and a half later as the clock in my Benz touched two, I was at last on the way to Grand Beach, wrestling with the usual early-Friday traffic.
I had called our cottage from the house, while Damian was exhausting the dogs to report total success. Nuala had cheered, so did Ethne in the background.
Behind me in the car, the hounds, exhausted from their run and presumably with their eliminatory tracts properly drained, were sound asleep, too tired even to snore.
I let the events of the last couple of days flow through my memory. In four brushes with the law, we had reversed Damian’s position and thrown his crazy family into disarray.
We knew a lot more than we did back on Memorial Day. We knew that Kathleen was in the process of breaking with her family. If they ever found out that her testimony had cleared Damian, they would be furious, but there was not much they could do. They’d already pulled all the strings on her and most of them didn’t work anymore. We had learned that her brothers were immature, spoiled babies over whom their father had total control, maybe in part because of manipulation by their mother. We knew that Jackie O’Sullivan was out of control and his youngest, Maura, was close to collapse, trapped between her husband and new son and the family neurosis. She probably also knew that she had obstructed justice and acted as an accessory to murder. She had conspired with her father and perhaps others to make Damian the scapegoat. Damian knew this too and he was willing to forgive.
So could not the Holmes and Watson of Southport Avenue forget about it all? Our primary goal had been to salvage Damian. We’d done that, one of me wife’s more spectacular successes. Why not leave it there?
I knew the answer to that question.
Still, I posed it that night out on the deck overlooking the silent Lake, protector of how many mysteries and witness to how many tragedies.
“Och, sure, Dermot Michael, don’t you have the right of it as you always do? I know something terrible will happen. I don’t know how to stop it. I’ll have to wait to see what happens. Maybe we can do something while there’s still time.”
“Shall we put off the trip to the Holy Ground?”
“Och, Dermot, I wouldn’t do that at all, at all. But isn’t the trouble going to happen before then? Haven’t they been crumbling for a long time? We’ve made it a little worse by helping out poor Damian, but sure it would happen anyhow. So don’t worry about it.”
I didn’t even think of saying the same thing to her. It would have been a waste of time. Instead, I sipped at my Irish Cream.
Why, I wondered, would the creator of the universe, the ruler of all things, the one who ignited the Big Bang, bother to communicate his wishes to a simple, Irish-speaking peasant girl from the W
est of Ireland, a beautiful and remarkable woman and of course my wife, but not all that special among the billions of human women who had been born on our obscure little planet?
No explanation for it, at all, at all. Yet I didn’t doubt the fact.
As my brother George the Priest has said, “The Lord has something for each of us to do. If we don’t do it, no one else will.”
And as his sometime boss the little bishop had observed, “One does not waste one’s time trying to figure out the plans of the Lord God.”
19
I’M SO tired, spiritually, morally drained. I have worked very hard and tonight, distressed as I am, it all seems a waste of time to me.
It’s been many years since I added to this diary. Young Richard Colm Skeffington is almost five. He has a little sister Mary Rose. They are both handsome, healthy children. Their parents are happy too. Motherhood agrees with Lady Skeffington. His Lordship is more relaxed than ever, having left behind the memories of the Khyber Pass and the woman he loved there.
I have been too busy working to keep a diary. I play my piano sometimes once a week, sometimes less often. Eileen O’Flynn does not come to listen anymore, though she promises she will whenever she comes home from the Mercy Sisters in Galway to whom I have sent her. She loves the school and does very well in her studies. I must begin to think whether she needs university training. There is always Queens in Galway, which is becoming an excellent school.
Obviously I pay for her schooling.
When she is home she is, as they say here, half courting with my shy schoolmaster, Liam Conroy.
My daughter and my son courting! Naturally I am pleased, though I fear they will leave for America and I will be childless again. Her mother will soon follow, I’m sure. And she should. She will be hard to give up too.
I wish I could say that she is no longer a source of temptation to me. But she is. However, I seem to be able to live with that She is also a strong support and provides excellent advice though only when I seek it.
If only she were not so wise, not so strong, not so beautiful.
Irish Cream Page 24
