The Death of an Irish Sinner

by Bartholomew Gill

  Together, they said, “Oh, great mistress.”

  “Possessor of the packet entire.”

  “Possessor of the packet entire.”

  Bresnahan continued, “What are you having to drink this fine afternoon? A brimful glass of Chablis, thank you very much. Then, the bill of fare. As you noticed when I walked in, I’m nothing but skin and bones.”

  Jam’s moiling eyes dropped down her body again. “I like you,” he managed.

  “No, no, no—you love me. Say it.”

  “I love you.”

  “No, with more feeling, since you truly mean it.”

  “I love you.”

  “That will have to do for the moment. Now, my wine, Jam man. On the double—hip, hip, hip.”

  Smiling slightly, Jam trudged toward the wine cooler at the other end of the bar.

  Bresnahan looked around the pub/restaurant with its exposed-brick walls, checkered tablecloths, and framed front-page copies of history-making events on the walls. Plainly an eatery that hoped to attract journalists. Only a few tables were taken now at half past six. And no Dery Parmalee.

  “Ath Cliath crowd come in here?” she asked, when the brimming goblet was placed before her.

  “You mean Dery and his lads? Like clockwork. Be here”—Jam checked the clock in back of him—“in ten minutes, I’d hazard.”

  “What—no lasses?”

  “Tell you somethin’?”

  Bresnahan leaned forward, knowing that her black scoop-neck jumper would afford the barman a peek at her breasts.

  “I don’t think he fancies lasses.”

  “You’re coddin’ me.”

  Jam swallowed. “Well, they say he’s a bit of a poof. Ex-priest and all.”

  Who claimed he had an affair with Mary-Jo Stanton, Bresnahan remembered from the morning briefing. “No—now you are cod-din’ me.”

  “Gets a little jarred now and then, after they’ve put the paper to bed, as they say. And he cruises the bar here, leaving as often with trousers as skirts, if yeh catch me drift.”

  Which made Bresnahan’s own odds fifty-fifty. She reached for the glass.

  A few minutes passed by, the bar began to fill up, and Jam again appeared by her side. “Are you ready now?” He pointed to the swing doors that gave entrance to the pub. “Foive, four, t’ree, two, two, two, two”—the doors opened, and in stepped a man who could only be Dery Parmalee, followed by several other, younger men.

  “One,” said Jam. “Shite, call it a rehearsal. I’ll give out to them about it now. Just watch me.”

  The group took a corner table near the window that possessed, Bresnahan gauged, a clear view of her legs. And throughout the first round of drinks, eyes flashed her way, Parmalee’s—framed by his octagonal glasses—as often as the others’.

  After pints were emptied, Parmalee rose to order more and worked his way into the now packed bar. Wearing a white turtleneck jumper and straight-leg jeans under a blue blazer, he was a good-looking man of around forty with a square face, a straight nose, and thinning sandy hair. Tall, thin, and angular, he moved lithely, athletically, in a way that suggested he worked out. He glanced at her once more as he entered the bar crowd, and she smiled in return.

  Handing back the change, Jam muttered something and canted his head toward Bresnahan, obviously saying that she’d been asking after Parmalee and perhaps he should chat her up.

  Consulting her wineglass demurely, Bresnahan waited.

  At length a hairy wrist appeared on the edge of the bar, and she looked up.

  “You’ve been asking after me, have you?”

  “Women do, surely.”

  Behind the donnish spectacles, his light blue eyes closed pointedly and reopened. “But a woman of your…er, kindly disposition. What possibly could be your interest in me?”

  “Well”—Bresnahan uncrossed her legs, and in turning to face him, her knees brushed across the front of his jeans—“as it happens, I’m seeking employment. I need a job.”

  A smile appeared. Nearly as white as his jumper, Parmalee’s teeth were even if rather widely spaced. “Are you, now. In what capacity, may I ask?”

  Bresnahan was prepared. “Staff writer. I admire your publication—how different it is from the stodgy rags in this town, how you’re willing to take on the thorny issues. And I’d like to”—reaching for her purse, she aimed her smoky eyes at Parmalee—“throw my weight into the mix.”

  Pulling out the résumé that she’d had a friend in Los Angeles fax her, Bresnahan handed him the several pages. At a Dublin employment agency, she’d had another friend scan the document onto his letterhead, so the packet looked somewhat legitimate and could be checked, at least on the Dublin end.

  It said that Sonya Stephens had graduated from Trinity College in 1986, emigrated to the States that year, and begun a career as a journalist, working for underground and small weekly presses. After taking a master’s in journalism at the University of Missouri, she then began writing for a succession of large, well-regarded papers, such as the San José Mercury-News and the Star-Ledger of New Jersey.

  It included three letters of recommendation from editors and a list of journalism awards.

  Sonya and Ruth were the same age, looked rather alike, and Sonya, having left journalism to pursue other interests there in the States, would not be located easily.

  Parmalee scanned the pages before sliding them onto the bar. “Great résumé, and I’d hire you in a heartbeat, were it yours.

  “Charles,” he called to the barman, “could we have a round over here?”

  “He told me his name was Jam. Or That’s Jam,” Bresnahan offered, sensing that the jig was up.

  “And that you’re the darlingest girl to set foot in this kip since he opened it a few centuries ago, I should imagine. Don’t feel complimented. He tells that to all the girls. It’s his shtick. Like yours, Miss Bresnahan. Or shall I call you Detective Inspector Bresnahan? What are you having—another glass of wine? Or—”

  “A large whiskey,” Bresnahan muttered glumly.

  “While nursing?” Parmalee asked, his eyes dropping down to her breasts. “Is that advisable? And while we’re on the subject of contra-marital bliss, how are you handling your…novel arrangement there in the Coombe with your colleague, Superintendent Ward, who is the father of your child, and his—Ward’s—common-law wife, Lee Sigal, and the two children he has by her?”

  Parmalee had raised his voice, as though addressing those around them. “You know, I’m glad you came here this afternoon. I’ve been meaning to ask you if we might do a feature on your unique living situation. I think my four hundred thousand readers here in Catholic Ireland would be fascinated to know that polygamy, unknown since the days of Brian Boru, is staging a resurgence right here in Dublin City.

  “And here she sits amongst us, gentle persons, the perpetrator of such viciousness. To look at her with that short, tight skirt and all her”—Parmalee swirled a hand—“accoutrements hanging out, you’d think…what?” Parmalee asked a man standing next to him.

  “Tart, right? But you’d only be half right.”

  The drinks had arrived and Bresnahan reached for hers.

  “Because what you see before you is a tart with two big differences, and I’m not talking strictly glandular, although she’ll do—and does—in that department, as you can see.”

  Bresnahan gripped the glass, wondering if she could contain herself, as she knew she must. If ever it became public knowledge how she and Ward were living, both of them would surely have to resign their posts. In gossipy Catholic Ireland they would be marked for life.

  “The first is that she’s a cop tart,” Parmalee now went on, glass in hand. His eyeglasses winked as he tilted back his head to declaim, “What’s that, you ask? Pop tart? Nay, nay, nay—not pop tart. Cop tart.

  “That’s a cop who gets herself all tarted up, like this, and comes in here representing herself as an agent of the Fourth Estate in the attempt to land an undercover su
rveillance job not for me and Ath Cliath—but rather on me. This woman, this cop tart sitting here before you, actually wanted to spy on me!

  “Why, you ask? Will murder do?”

  Now the bar crowd had quieted.

  “Shhhh!” somebody in back of Bresnahan hissed.

  “Dery’s a gas character, and he’s having ‘Big Red,’ there, off.”

  “You, you, and even you too”—Parmalee pointed at some of the others—“you thought she was just another journalistic bimbo who’d do any little thang at all to join in the business at Ath Cliath.

  “Truth is, she’s been doing some rather nuanced little thangs, including the business with one of her colleagues and her colleague’s common-law wife.”

  Now the silence in the crowded bar was nearly palpable, and Bresnahan could feel the weight of their eyes on her bowed shoulders.

  “And what a story! An amazing story, one filled with lust, perhaps love, two betrayals that we can count, two further pregnancies, and now two common-law wives with two young children, all of whom have set up literal shop with their betrayer.

  “Will you hear more, gentle persons?”

  “Go, Dery!” one exhorted.

  “It seems that this woman’s paramour of three years had a checkered past. And after a three-year liaison with her, it was revealed to him that, miraculously, he already possessed a ready-made family with a wealthy, handsome, eligible woman right here in Dublin City. Who”—Parmalee raised a hand—“quickly became pregnant by him again, after he moved in.”

  Bresnahan glanced at her drink and then the door. Sliding off the stool, she reached for her purse.

  “Now, now, Miss B.,” Parmalee advised, “this really isn’t the class of party where you’d want to be the first to leave. I could name names, and then where would you and your ménage à trois be?”

  Bresnahan eased herself back onto the bar stool. In spite of its over half-million inhabitants, Dublin was still a small town, and any hint of scandal was circulated with the speed of a wildfire, especially concerning the police, whose personal lives were supposed to be above reproach.

  “So, with her lover not merely admitting to fresh betrayal but also having left her for another woman, what’s a poor girl to do? Pine for a while, then lose herself in lust? She tried that for…how long was it, dear?”

  Under hooded brows, Bresnahan glared at the man. Yes, she and Ward had maintained a three-year relationship, sometimes living together in his digs, other times in hers. And yes, Ward—in the course of an investigation—had stumbled upon an old flame who had revealed to him that fourteen years earlier she had given birth to his child.

  Then, after he had been shot and nearly killed, the woman—Lee Sigal—had both the time and the money to nurse him back to health, during which time one thing had led to another, and she had become pregnant by him again. Bresnahan could understand that—how it could happen and why.

  But, yes, she had also felt grossly betrayed, even as she had pined for Hughie Ward—his love, his warmth and companionship. But she had not lost herself in lust. In fact, she had been rather repulsed by the other men who had taken her out. She had become so used to his presence and body that it was as if she had lost the other—and in many ways better—part of herself.

  “Run away? Flee? Not this woman,” Parmalee went on. “Not ‘Big Red’ here. Do you like that moniker, Rut’ie?”

  Bresnahan’s eyes flashed at Parmalee. If he mentioned her surname, she didn’t know what she would do, but she’d take her vengeance there, while she had him in her presence.

  “No—she took a completely different and creative tack, she did. Instead of acting the part of the woman scorned, she seduced her betrayer, got herself pregnant by him, and moved in with the lucky gumshoe, who up until a year and a half ago was a confirmed bachelor.

  “Now the three of them and their three children live together in common-marital bliss. The wives are buddies, the kids great pals, and everybody loves their dada. Tell us, ‘Big Red’—how do you handle the sleeping arrangements, or do they just work themselves out?”

  Rather perfectly, Bresnahan believed. After the initial torrent of rage and jealousy—when she realized that she still loved Ward deeply and perhaps it might be possible for him to love two women equally and at once—all else became possible.

  Now together they had three incomes, all the daycare they could want, intelligent, mature companionship, and much love, since Ward was attentive to the needs of both on that score.

  The only quibble with the arrangement that Bresnahan had found was that Ward smiled too much. She had never seen him happier, which had made her wonder if all men were actually repressed bigamists.

  And why not, she thought, again sliding off the stool and stepping into Parmalee so their noses were only inches apart. Dublin was a potentially cosmopolitan city with good schools and universities, cultural institutions, and even journals, Parmalee’s tabloid excepted.

  Why couldn’t—no, why shouldn’t—alternative living situations, based on love and mutual respect and in which children were also loved and cared for, be explored? Certainly the model nuclear family was in serious disarray in much of the world, if statistics could be believed.

  And now to have this—what? ex-priest-turned-scandalmonger—not merely poking fun at but also threatening their excellent arrangement enraged Bresnahan. Low, so only Parmalee would hear, she said, “You don’t know me, you don’t know us—”

  “Oh, but I do,” he began to say through a thin smile.

  “I do. I have touts—”

  “No. You. Don’t. And what you don’t know is—you push this thing to the max, we will too. Our way. Count on it. And you won’t like our max, not one bit.”

  Parmalee stepped away from her, his smile muting to one of wonder. “I can’t believe it! The bitch is actually threatening me with bodily harm.”

  Bresnahan only regarded him.

  “Did you hear it?” he asked one man. “Or you? I want you to be my witnesses—just in case this curious person can find the…er, balls to act on her threat.”

  Some of the others now began laughing.

  “Do I say your name now, or will you spare us the burden of your loathsome presence—pistol-packin’ adulteress that you are?

  “Now, be off!” Parmalee pointed toward the swing doors.

  The laughter was general and sustained as Bresnahan made her way through the pub.

  “Ah, c’mon, Dery—tell us her name. D’ya have her number?”

  “He’s got that, all right.”

  “Great craque! The best!”

  “No, no—great rack. Will you look at the prow on her. Wouldn’t mind a bit of that meself.”

  Bresnahan knew it was wrong, but for the first time since having her baby and moving in with Hughie and Lee, she felt different and…unhappy about who she was and how she was living.

  Which made her angrier still.

  Through much of the afternoon, McGarr and Noreen had waited for Father Juan Carlos Sclavi to complete a “Confidence” with his “spiritual director,” Father Fred Duggan.

  “From what Father Sclavi has already revealed to me, you won’t be disappointed,” Duggan said, when offering them lunch in the refectory of Barbastro.

  “Truth is, we have some spiritual issues to clear up. Sclavi is a…hugely caring and sensitive human being, and divulging information about somebody, no matter how accurate or important, is most difficult for him. I hope you understand.”

  McGarr checked in with his headquarters, wondering if any leads to the whereabouts of Geraldine Breen had turned up. “Not a one,” said John Swords, the desk sergeant on duty. “It’s as if she simply disappeared, and I can’t see how, the way she looked—the busted nose and all.”

  McGarr did. She had obviously been hidden by her cohorts in Opus Dei, and he was half tempted to declare her wanted for murder and have a before-and-after artist’s rendering published in the country’s newspapers.

  But
would she have attacked him in Mary-Jo Stanton’s headquarters had she murdered the woman? Perhaps not. Still, a case could be made that she had attacked him to allow whoever it was who had been tossing the place to escape.

  “How many staffers do we have on her?”

  “Five, including myself.”

  “Add two more. Concentrate on known Opus Dei residences. Try to get inside. Watch for any medical attention—physicians, nurses, trips to the chemist. That class of thing.”

  Throughout lunch and then later, in a walk around the grounds of the estate, Noreen and McGarr discussed the subject she had broached earlier in the day—faith and religion.

  “And you mean to tell me you don’t believe in anything at all?”

  “I didn’t say that, exactly.”

  “Yes, you did. You said you didn’t see a sign of God anywhere in the universe.”

  McGarr looked away at an expanse of sloping lawn that led down to a large pond framed by the twin stands of magnificent, immemorial linden trees that graced the bank.

  He remembered how Mary-Jo Stanton once spoke to him, gardener to gardener, of her theory of planting. “I like making vistas at every turn, in a way that will lead the visitor from one picture to another.” They had been walking along this very pathway in spring, like this.

  “Of course, this sends people who like great panoramas completely mad,” she had continued. The three islands on the pond—or “lake,” as she had called the maybe forty-acre impoundment—were thickly planted with pampas grass and New Zealand flax “to provide the architectural element” among the waterside plantings. As he remembered, those consisted of candelabra primulas, fair-maids-of-France, lilies, hostas, fox-gloves, and dicentra, which had only just begun to show themselves.

  “Well?” Noreen demanded.

  McGarr felt his brow furrow. Conversations like this, which supposed the multiplicity of life could be reduced to simple statements, were difficult for him. Often he considered himself just not clever enough to sum up his feelings, as could Noreen and many of the other people they knew.