by Anne Emery
Brennan turned his head to his brother and nodded his appreciation. They drove in silence for a few minutes until they came to a lake to the left of the highway. Brennan said, “Doctor, every time I drive by this lake, I think of . . . dragons! What do you suppose that means?”
Brennan took a glance at Patrick again and was gratified to see a startled look on his face.
“I see it, too, Brennan. That can only mean one thing, since we were brought up together: our mother was an overpowering, frightening figure in our formative years.”
Brennan laughed. Teresa Burke was the kindest, wisest, most loving mother anyone could hope to have. The Miller Lake Dragon was either a natural formation of wood or something carved or created to look like a dragon’s head. Any time Brennan saw it, he was speeding by on his way to or from the airport, and he’d never taken the time for a closer look. They kept up the light-hearted chatter until they arrived at the parish house.
“Now,” Patrick asked when they’d arrived and gone up to Brennan’s room, “where are you going to take me for a bite to eat? I don’t smell anything boiling down there.” He pointed to the first floor.
“God between us and all harm!” Brennan intoned. “Yer one in the kitchen here would like nothing better than to slip deadly poison into my porridge and have done with me.”
“Now, Brennan, are we getting a little . . .”
“Trust me on this one, Paddy.”
“All right. Let me just make a mental note. Direct future consultations to explore possible paranoid ideation.”
“You’d be paranoid, too, if she was out to get you.”
“Fair enough.”
They had a lovely meal of moussaka for Patrick and scallop souvlaki for Brennan at the Athens restaurant. Brennan was happy to prolong the occasion with a couple of glasses of Greek wine. Happy to be with his brother and equally gratified to be missing a meeting of the board of directors who had appointed themselves chieftains of his school. A meeting on a Friday night! And if the timing wasn’t bad enough, the subject was even more execrable: board chairman W. Langston Soames had it in his head that the school needed “rebranding.” Brennan had barely listened when the man called him on the phone and began rattling on about the school’s “brand.” But he had tuned back in when the word “prestigious” came up; Soames wanted it in the “promotional bumpf” or whatever he said. Brennan explained in what he hoped was a patient tone of voice that it was up to others to use the word “prestigious” if it was applicable. “Prestige is something to be inferred by others, Mr. Soames, not implied by us.” That didn’t shut him up, though; nothing ever did. He went on then about a “communications subcommittee” that would report to some other fecking committee . . . Brennan sent up a prayer of thanks when the call finally ended. Yes, much better to be enjoying a glass of wine and catching up on family news with his brother than listening to a shower of bumbógs droning on and on at yet another time-wasting meeting.
When supper was ended, Brennan walked Patrick to his hotel and said, “See you in the sacristy for the morning Mass. If you have to put yourself into a hypnotic state to recall your Latin responses, please do so.”
“No, I go to the old Mass in New York, so I’m well able for it.”
“Is maith sin!”
“I didn’t say I’m well able to be gabbing in Irish!”
“Noted. I’ll see you in the morning. And after your sacramental duties, you and I are taking a little road trip to Lunenburg.”
“Oh? Good.”
“We are going to hear the great tenor Fried Habler in the mid-afternoon. But we’ll go early and see the sights first. The old wooden buildings of the town are so well preserved that the place was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”
“Great buildings are right up with great music for you, I know, Brennan. Ever regret that decision to switch from architecture to Holy Orders?”
“There are moments . . .”
“I don’t doubt it. Anyway, I’m looking forward to the road trip.”
Piet
Detective Sergeant Van den Brink was doing some weekend work at the station, going over his notes on yet another child sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend, when Ailsa came in and said, “I heard a strange story from a friend of mine in New Brunswick. I grew up with her here. She married a Mountie, Keith, and they’re stationed in NB.” She caught sight of his notebook and said, “Oh, sorry, Piet. I see you’re busy here.”
“The interruption is welcome.” He looked with distaste at his notes. “Another mum’s boyfriend case. I’d rather listen to your strange story, no matter what it is.”
“And I’d rather talk about it than your case. Just tell me this, though. Is it a situation where the mother was completely in the dark, or does it fit into that other category of horror stories, the kind where the mother knew or suspected and yet —”
“Let’s hear your story.”
Ailsa looked at him and then said, “Right, here it is. My friend, Shauna, called me last night. Told me about a weird incident a few years ago at the flying club they have up in Moncton. They had to shut the place down, not let anybody fly. This coincided with the visit of some of the brass from the Department of National Defence in Ottawa going on a little goodwill tour of various military bases. It was New Brunswick’s turn to do the spit-and-polish routine for the Chief of the Defence Staff and his attendants. The first visit was to the base at Gagetown, which I’m told is one of the biggest military bases in the country. Anyway, the visit was to rally the troops. So, there was a big do there in Gagetown. Then the delegation went to Moncton to speak to the Air Force Association, or something like that. And the flying club grounded everybody. Shauna said she’d get more details for me.
“Now, here’s the part that’s of interest to us, in case you were wondering when I’d get to it! Late that night, an RCMP patrol car stopped a driver on Route Two outside Moncton on suspicion of impaired driving. Gave him the demand and got him to blow, and he was under the limit. They couldn’t get him for point zero eight. He was alone in the vehicle, and his story was that he had momentarily lost his concentration while trying to swat a hornet or something, and he assured the Mountie that it would be steady as she goes from then on. Mountie didn’t charge him with impaired driving. But he remembered this when he heard the recent news from here, and he mentioned it to Shauna’s husband. Driver was Lieutenant-Colonel MacNair.”
“Really! Well, that’s interesting. Bit of a habit with MacNair. We know he had a breathalyzer conviction here in Nova Scotia back in the day.”
“Right. Now the Mountie in NB remembered seeing some kind of emblem or souvenir on the front seat, something that was given to the people who attended the defence department get-togethers. And he made some kind of crack to the driver, MacNair, about standing on guard for the country and not stumbling, or whatever he said. Now there’s not necessarily any connection between the roadside stop on the highway and whatever happened at the Moncton Flight Centre, but you remember MacNair’s file and what we learned about him being pissed off at the brass, at the government when they lumped all the armed forces in together. Unification. Well, what Shauna heard was that somebody at the Moncton get-together was drunk and belligerent. Pretty thin, I know, in terms of making a connection. Even if MacNair was drunk and obnoxious to the brass, that may have had nothing to do with the planes being grounded. And even if he had something to do with that, it doesn’t make him the kind of guy who kills women.”
“No, you’re right. It doesn’t. But if it was him, it shows him to be a bit of a hothead.”
“He was stopped on Route Two near River Glade, which is southwest of Moncton, about half an hour’s drive. I looked at my notes and saw that he was stationed at Gagetown at the time. And you’d take Route Two if you were travelling west from Moncton to Gagetown.”
“Feel like taking an unofficial drive out
of province, just to look around and meet old friends? Even if it turns out to be nothing, we get a road trip.”
“I do, but I’m going to be giving evidence in that armed robbery trial. So, it’ll be a couple of weeks at least before I can get away.” She started out of the room and then turned back. “Think you can have your child abuser convicted and locked up by then?”
“How about I take you to his cell to see him, Ailsa? By the time you get through with him, he’ll be pleading to confess and be placed in protective custody.”
“If I get anywhere near him, he’ll need it.”
Chapter XII
Brennan
Doctor Burke did a stellar job as Father Burke’s altar boy on Saturday morning. Then they had a bite to eat and got into Brennan’s car for the trip to the south shore. They turned off the main highway as soon as they could and drove along the Atlantic coast until they arrived in Lunenburg.
“First stop, the golf course.”
Patrick turned to him in surprise. “You? Golf?”
“Of course not. You can decide whether that pun was intended, or was a Freudian slip, or . . .”
“Get on with it.”
“Right. It’s just that the best view of the town is from the golf course.”
He circled around Lunenburg harbour so they could see the magnificent townscape from across the water. The brightly coloured wooden houses on the slope of the snowy hill made for a spectacular view. Then they drove across and up into the town and parked the car. They walked up the steep town streets to a big white nineteenth-century wooden church on Cumberland Street. Central United.
Brennan and Patrick entered the lovely old church with its wooden beams and stained-glass windows. Priest and altar boy genuflected before taking their seats and then laughed when they caught themselves performing Roman rituals in the Methodist-United place of worship. The church was packed, and there was excited chattering as people took their seats.
“He’s got a good turnout,” Patrick remarked.
“He has. Not often the smaller centres get a big name like Habler. Let’s hope he can join us for dinner. Here he comes.”
The lights went down and the musicians appeared, followed by the opera star himself in a formal black suit, white shirt, and white bowtie. The applause was thunderous. He responded graciously, speaking to the audience in German and English, which he said was appropriate, given that “the town was named by an English king after a place in Germany, which was Lüneburg, because the king was the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg . . .” He stopped to take a breath, then continued, “Because he was really German but, anyway, who can follow it all?” The audience laughed at the convoluted explanation, and Habler said, “It is easier to follow the plot of Der Ring des Nibelungen!” He told the audience that he would be singing some Wagner, and he noted that he and Wagner were both born in Leipzig, and both were opera nerds. Habler made no reference to aspects of the Wagnerian canon that had so pleased the people who took power in Germany in the 1930s. The concert repertoire included arias by Mozart and Strauss, a couple of folk songs, and some sacred pieces as well. His voice was magnificent, and the crowd was on its feet for a good five minutes afterwards, prompting a couple of curtain calls and encores until the people finally let him go.
Brennan and Patrick waited until Habler emerged and came over to them. Brennan complimented him on a wonderful performance and introduced him to Patrick, who offered compliments of his own. The Burkes invited him to join them for dinner. Habler said he had been asked to go and have a beer with some of the people who had organized the event, people involved in music in the town, but after that he would join them for the meal.
“There’s a place on Montague Street,” Brennan said. “They scoop everything tasty out of the sea, boil it up, and put it on plates for you. I can’t remember the name of the place right now. There are several, but this one is quite far up the street on the water side, and it has a dining room with big windows overlooking the harbour.”
“This is not a big city. Montague Street. I shall poke my head into all the places until I find you.”
Brennan and Patrick decided to hoof it around town, up and down the narrow, hilly streets, to appreciate the architecture and the harbour view before darkness set in. Then it was time to eat. “There it is,” said Brennan, pointing to Big Red’s. They went inside and settled themselves at a table overlooking the water.
The waitress came by, a friendly looking woman who introduced herself as Betty. Brennan greeted her and said, “We’ll be ordering a meal, and we’ll have a bottle of German white wine with three glasses. We have a guest who’ll be joining us a bit later.”
She answered in what Brennan thought of as a typical Lunenburg accent, which sounded to him like a combination of Germany and New England. A lilting cadence with the letter R not pronounced. “Take all the time you need. If you’d like to wait and order when your guest arrives, that’s fine. Or I can come back to the table right away and put your dinner onto ’er if you’re faint with hunger and would rather not wait.”
“Sure, we’ll order now, Betty. We can have dessert when he arrives. Now, I’d usually go for a pizza and I know yours are brilliant, but this evening I’m going for the kind of creatures you bring up in pails from the shore down there. You, Patrick?”
“Fish for me, too.”
So, they ordered bowls of chowder and heaps of scallops, lobster, and clams, along with great whacks of the renowned homemade bread. “And a bottle of the Riesling, please.”
A man at the next table asked the Burkes where they were from, and Brennan gave a pocket history. “We were booted out of Ireland, wound up in Hell’s Kitchen in New York, and now I’ve found sanctuary here in Nova Scotia.”
Another patron asked Brennan how he liked it here, and the conversation went on until the chowder arrived. It was the best Brennan had ever tasted. The Riesling arrived, too, but they decided to wait for Habler before getting into it. Brennan’s intake would necessarily be limited, given that he was the wheelman for this outing.
“Friendly town,” said Patrick.
“And to think this place was settled precisely to counter the likes of you and me, Paddy.”
“The likes of us in what way?”
“Catholics. The British were trying to establish their colony here, which of course meant displacing the local population. Sound familiar? They sent Cornwallis over, after he’d done such a splendid job exterminating the Highland Scots after Culloden. But the native people here and the Acadian French didn’t take kindly to the new arrivals. They worked together trying to pick the new colonizers off, put the run to them.”
“The way our ancestors did in the oul country.”
“And not just ancestors.” They exchanged a meaningful glance across the table. Several members of the Burke family had been fighting the British in Ireland in very recent times. Brennan’s troubles in the North of Ireland were a direct consequence of that recent history.
They put those memories aside when the steaming platters of seafood arrived. And right behind Betty the waitress came Fried Habler. “Is this the gentleman you were waiting for?” Betty asked. “Well, I guess you didn’t wait!” Her eyes went to the chowder bowls, scraped clean.
“Thank you, miss, thank you! Yes, these are my dinner companions,” Habler said and joined them at the table. “Please bring me some of whatever was in those bowls, at your convenience. I am not in a rush.”
“Certainly, sir. Coming right up.”
Habler sat, and they chatted about the concert and the town. Brennan said, “We were just discussing the local history. Some of the battles here were named after priests who were allied with the native people against the British. ‘Father Le Loutre’s War’ was one of them. I can’t remember the other names. The Brits did here what they did in Ireland. Brought planters in, good Protestant stock to displace the locals, to pop
ulate the empire and make it work. But — and this may interest you, Fried — they weren’t satisfied with some of the riffraff they’d dragged over from England. So, they decided to recruit a bunch of ‘foreign Protestants,’ Germans and Swiss. Thought they’d do a better job of it. And they did.”
“Of course they did! They should have called us in right at the start.”
When they had finished their last mouthful of shellfish and wine, it was time for dessert. “Blueberry grunt, lads?” Brennan inquired. “I see they have it as a special this evening. Not the most elegant name but very tasty. Blueberries, dumplings, whipped cream. Sometimes it has maple syrup.” They hailed Betty and ordered three servings.
“You know what they say about guys who take to sweets in a big way, Bren.”
“No, Doctor Burke, I do not,” Brennan replied. But he did. He helped run a lunch program at Saint Bernadette’s church for disadvantaged people. He hadn’t missed the fact that people who were seriously addicted to drugs or alcohol went for the sweet stuff in the middle of the day. Fourteen cubes of sugar or loads of that whitener stuff, whatever it was that people put in their coffee. Just dumped it all in. Be that as it may, Brennan wasn’t the only one to finish off every scrap of the blueberry grunt.
