“Thanks for speaking to me, Father. My name is Monty Collins and I live in Nova Scotia. I’m doing a bit of genealogy, and you may be able to help me.”
“Looking for your roots type thing, would it be?”
“That’s right. My mother was a Murphy.”
“Aren’t they all?” The old man let fly with a guffaw, ending in a racking cough that held up my research for a good two minutes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Collins, sorry. Now, your mother was a Murphy. Go on.”
“She had a cousin down your way, and apparently this man did a lot of research on the family tree. Somebody suggested he was a member of your parish, maybe as far back as the 1950s.”
“You make that sound like the 1850s, Mr. Collins! It’s not far back at all. Not for me. Maybe I can help you.”
“Great. Would you happen to remember a Cathal Murphy? I believe he immigrated to the States —”
“Cathal Murphy. Sure, I remember Cathal! Wasn’t I just speaking at his funeral the other day? Well, more like a few months ago it was, but, yes, Cathal. He was your uncle, did you say?”
“Not an uncle, but a second cousin, I suppose he’d be. I was upset to hear he died. I had been hoping to get down there and pay him a visit. Just goes to show you, we should never put off things like this.”
“No indeed, we should not.”
“What can you tell me about Cathal, Father, anything?”
“I didn’t see anything of Cathal outside the church, but I saw a
great deal of him in my years at Saint Bridey’s because the man was at Mass several times a week. Came to the eight o’clock on Sunday mornings, and the noon Mass on weekdays. A very devout man, was Cathal. I was in the parish on and off for over twenty-five years, and Cathal was a regular communicant all that time.”
“Did he belong to any church organizations, that sort of thing?”
“No, I approached him to join the Holy Name Society once but he just seemed to want to take part in the sacraments. Not a joiner, I don’t think.”
“The sacraments including confession?” I said lightly.
“Ha ha. You know I can’t speak of that. But now that you mention it, no, Cathal must have had another priest as his confessor.”
“Did Cathal attend Mass by himself?”
“Always by himself. He had a sister but I didn’t meet her until Cathal died. She apparently went to a church closer to her home. Cathal liked Saint Brigid’s so he came to us.”
“Was there anyone else in the parish he was close to? Any particular friends?”
“Not that I ever noticed. He was polite and friendly, but I never saw him talking with anyone in particular, no.”
“There’s another name I want to try on you, Father, because he seemed to be connected to Cathal in some way. He may have been a parishioner. Did you know a Declan Burke?”
“That sounds familiar. I’m getting a picture in my old brain here now, if you’ll just give me a second. There’s something —” I let him process his memories for a few moments. Then he laughed. “Yes, I knew Mr. Burke. But I knew him, in the beginning anyway, as Donal O’Byrne. I’ll explain that to you in a minute. He used to come to the eight o’clock Sunday Mass once a month or so. More like every two months. Now I found this curious because whenever he did show up, he was more than helpful. He always volunteered to take up the collection, sweep leaves or snow off the church steps when the occasion called for it, took his share of church envelopes — in the name of O’Byrne — and gave generously. Yet we wouldn’t see him for weeks at a time.
“Then there was an incident, but it turned out to be nothing all that serious really. I didn’t see it as —” His voice faded out. I didn’t want to lose him now.
“The incident, Father?” He didn’t reply. I had better go back under cover. “I’m just wondering whether it had anything to do with my cousin Cathal. I understood he knew this Declan Burke. Were they friendly with each other, as far as you could tell?”
“Far as I could tell, they didn’t even know each other. Attended the same Sunday Mass, well, when O’Byrne —
Burke
— attended. I never saw them speak to each other, at least not that I can remember now. And Cathal certainly had nothing to do with the little dust-up that occurred with Burke.”
“You’ve certainly got me curious here, Father. You see, I’m planning to try to track Mr. Burke down. And if there is something serious that I should know beforehand —”
“No, from my point of view, it wasn’t all that serious. Though it wasn’t exactly kosher. What happened was Burke was taking up the collection as he always did when he came to us. And one of the other men in the parish — Ted Lawlor, God rest him — made an accusation against Burke. That he was stealing money from the collection! Now, I found that difficult to believe. My first thought was that Lawlor’s nose was out of joint because he liked to take up the collection himself and Burke always seemed to get to the baskets before he did. But Lawlor bustled over to me on the church steps after Mass one day and told me he saw Burke take an envelope from the basket and slip it into his pocket. Between you and me, I was wishing Burke had managed to drive away before my informant had reached me with the news! I tend to be the type who wants to avoid confrontation! But my parishioner left me no choice. I went down to the basement where the collection was tallied up after Mass, and Burke was just leaving. I was put in the embarrassing position of having to ask if he had taken anything from the basket. He looked at me and seemed to be thinking it over. I must tell you, I was a little intimidated for a moment there. He was a powerful-looking man. But he reached into his pocket, brought out an envelope and showed it to me. It had no name on it, just a check mark or something in ink. He slit it open and invited me to look inside. It wasn’t money at all! It was a sheaf of papers with numbers on them. The man was running some kind of numbers racket through the church! Which would explain why he was using a false name. Well, I didn’t know what to
say. I tried to formulate a response but he spoke first.
“I can’t remember his exact words. He apologized. Said it was all just a lark but he knew the temple of Christ was no place for that kind of game. He assured me in no uncertain terms that not one cent had been taken from the church. When he turned to go, he saw Ted Lawlor standing there. You should have seen the look he gave Ted! I later learned that Ted had followed Burke to his house one day, found out his real name and confronted him with the accusations! They had words, as you can imagine, and a bit of a shoving match. Ted told me a young girl was present and caught the whole exchange. Must have been a daughter. Ted felt bad about that part of it. But Burke was telling the truth when he said no money had been taken. We went back over our collections, matched envelopes with amounts collected, compared Sundays. No differences.
“Bit of a mystery about the man, to be sure. We never saw him again after that. Not in person anyway. Saw his picture, though. Years later, long after he stopped coming to Saint Brigid’s, I saw a photograph in one of the Catholic publications. A young man by the name of Burke was being ordained. And the man we’re speaking of was in the picture. He was the ordinand’s — the young lad’s — father. So there he was, a good Catholic then as he was when I knew him. Except for a bit of gaming!”
“I’ll have to keep in mind that this Burke, if I find him, may be a bit of a character. As for Cathal, you said you spoke at his funeral. Big funeral, was it?”
“Sad to say, it was not. Father McDiarmid said the Mass. There was me, Cathal’s sister and her friend. That was it. Well, as I said, Cathal kept himself to himself as far as I could tell.”
“So, nobody else on hand to see him off.”
“No. Though there was another man in the church. I couldn’t shake the impression that he was a — I don’t think he was family,” Grogan concluded.
“What was it you were going to say, Father? Don’t spare my feelings now! Cathal may have been a relative but I never met him, so —”
“He was a policeman. I’d swear to it.” He lowered his voice as if, even now, the wrong people might be listening. “And not a city cop
either. I knew the police officers in the area; it wasn’t one of them. He looked like, well, like a G-man! One of the Feds!”
I had a lot to digest here. Belatedly I remembered my supposed interest in the family tree. “Now you mentioned a sister. I didn’t know about her. She likely has some information for me.”
“You’re out of time again, Mr. — I’m sorry —”
“Collins.”
“Yes. Mr. Collins, you are too late. Miss Murphy died very recently. She was —” he cleared his throat as if Nessie’s death was not a fit subject for conversation “— she was murdered! This city, I’m telling you.”
“Murdered! What happened?”
“Some hooligans broke in. An old woman alone, in mourning for her brother. It doesn’t bear thinking about. God rest her soul.”
“Robbery?”
“Apparently.”
“Father, I appreciate your time. I’ll try to find this Declan Burke, to see what he can tell me about Cathal. I just hope Mr. Burke hasn’t met an untimely death as well! All my contacts seem to be dying off.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Mr. Burke coming to grief at the hands of another. If anyone tried to attack him, he’d be well able for it!”
“Thanks, Father Grogan.”
“You’re more than welcome, Mr. Collins. God bless you.”
A numbers racket. And the man who had confronted Declan at his house when Sandra was there was not a Mob enforcer, but a Saint Brigid’s parishioner in high dudgeon!
†
That afternoon I got a call from Terry Burke. He entertained me with some misadventures during his recent flight back from Europe. Then we turned to his father.
“We’re handing him over into your airspace for a while, I hear, Monty.”
“So I’m told. Let’s hope his stay is pleasant and uneventful. Tell me something. Was he ever into serious gambling that you know of?”
“Gambling? He’s enjoyed some success as a poker player, but I
don’t know of anything beyond that. Why?”
“It’s one of the many theories I’m considering. There’s no point in filling you in about it until I nail it down. If I do.”
“Fair enough. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I want to know any more about the old renegade; my heart can’t take it. I’m still trying to get my mind around the shooting.”
“I hear you. I should put it out of my head, but I’m not satisfied with the way things have been left. So. Desailes Company. It’s where Cathal Murphy used to work. Ever heard of it?”
“Not till today. But I asked around. It was Desailes Inc. and it ceased operations in the seventies. What’s Murphy supposed to have done there?”
“He worked in shipping/receiving. I was wondering whether he might have been running an arms-smuggling operation from the inside. With a co-worker. Raising money, sending some guy out to buy guns. Or having them brought in and shipped out of the warehouse.”
“Not much chance of that, from what I heard about the place. This outfit made surveillance equipment for high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. Top-secret stuff. Nothing was being shipped out of there unless it was going to the Defense Department or to the major aircraft manufacturers. They ran a tight ship. The guy I spoke to knew somebody who worked there. They practically patted them down when they finished their shift. Doesn’t sound like the kind of place where a low-level employee could run an operation of his own.”
“Right. Well, I’ll let you go.”
“Have fun with the old man. If he comes back bubbling over with good reports of his trip, I’ll hop on a flight some day and take a look for myself.”
“You’ve never been to Halifax?”
“Not beyond the airport. How are the bars?”
“You’ll be pleased.”
“Great.”
I replayed the conversation in my mind. There were two obituaries on my desk and I stared at them for a long moment, then looked at my watch and saw I had twenty minutes before I had to see a client. I picked up the phone, dialled Bridey’s number in Philadelphia, engaged in a bit of what I hoped was witty repartee,
and asked her again about the man Cathal Murphy had met at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the man who shouted but whose words were lost on the two young spies who were watching him.
†
Guinness and Jameson’s were on the table, and Declan Burke was in my doorway. It was a cool, breezy Saturday night and Declan had accepted the invitation to be my guest during his surprise visit to Halifax. Brennan had just pulled up with his father in the car. I had some questions for Mr. Burke but hospitality came first.
“What brings you to Halifax, Declan?”
“A man needs a reason to visit his son?”
“I suppose not. What are you going to do?”
“Have tea with him at the parochial house, attend his Masses, listen to his choirs, see his city, drink his whiskey. Anything else you can think of?”
“No, that just about covers it.”
“And I know you won’t mind at all, Collins, if I move into your neighbourhood and ask all manner of unwelcome questions about your life,” he said to me then.
“I would take that as a sign of your interest and friendship, Declan. Thank you. May I help you with your suitcase?”
“I can manage, thanks all the same.”
“Come in, then.”
“I’ll be right back. I left my coat in Bren’s car.” He headed back outside.
“He won’t talk to me,” Brennan said as he came up the front step. I followed him to the back of the house, where he stood at the kitchen sink looking out over the waters of the Northwest Arm.
“What do you mean, won’t talk?”
“About the shooting, about the gun heist and all the rest of it.”
“What else is new? The man’s not a talker.”
“I just thought — the fact that he’s flown all the way up here, after the kick in the nuts he gave me the day I left New York — I thought it must mean he wanted to tell me about it after all.”
“Well, he’s here, and there can only be one reason for that. He
wants to be with you. And it wasn’t a kick in the nuts he gave you in New York. He said it plainly: ‘Because you have the power to absolve.’ He thinks he doesn’t deserve your absolution.”
“God’s absolution.”
“Either way, he’s the one who’s undeserving. Not you.”