“Please call me Monty. Everyone does.”
“Fine then, Monty. You’ve met Declan.” She gave her husband an admonitory look. “I hope he was gracious at the door. This is Tom Kelly, Vincent Graziano, and Domenico Antonelli.”
“I’m going off with Monty here, if nobody minds,” Brennan announced. He stubbed his cigar in the heavy ashtray beside him.
Domenico answered for everyone, in a thick Italian accent. “We don’t mind. Most nights he wins. Tonight he loses. Either way he can go. Leave the cigars. We don’t have the, uh, Havana connections you have, Brennan.” Everyone laughed.
“These are legal in Canada,” Burke replied. “I can smoke them any time I like. See you boys later. Win the farm back for me, Ma,” he pleaded and we went upstairs. “I’ll be ready in two minutes.”
He left me at the door, then returned wearing jeans and a dark crewneck sweater. Declan and Teresa came to see us out. Brennan put an arm around his mother and squeezed her lightly. She looked up at him with concern. “You’re a sight, Bren darling. Black circles under your eyes. You’re exhausted. And look at this.” She reached up and stroked the dark hair curling over his collar. “Don’t they give you time off for a haircut? And you obviously haven’t been eating —”
“The girls at the bar will think I’m a tortured artist. Might get lucky.”
“Oh, Brennan! But really, my darling, I’m worried.”
“Mother dearest, mother fairest, we’ve been all through this before,” Brennan sang to her in the voice of an old-style crooner. He kissed her lightly on the forehead and opened the door.
“Till next time, Monty,” said Declan. “A trip to Halifax may be in order, I’m thinking. Goodbye Brennan,” he said and rested his hand briefly on his son’s shoulder. Then he turned and went back to the game.
III
“So, where are we off to?” I asked.
“There’s a blues bar on Queens Boulevard. Five minutes away.” I noticed a bit more Irish in his voice. “You have a blues outfit of your own, have I got that right?”
“Yeah. I still play in a little band we formed in law school. Functus. We play for ourselves mostly. But then again, it’s blues, so we’re happy in our loneliness.”
The bar was smoky and crowded when we arrived and the band was on a break. We found a table and ordered drinks, a Jameson’s for him and a Czech beer for me. I could see that Burke was tense. Any relief the visit had offered seemed to be wearing off. But he made an effort to chat about his family. He was the second child, oldest boy, in a family of six: Maire, Brennan, Patrick, Francis, Terrence, and Brigid. When the band came back on, we ordered another round and turned our attention to the blues.
I became aware of two women eyeing us from the bar. One was very attractive with red hair, the other a rather blowzy-looking blonde who may have had one too many for the road. They were in their mid- to late thirties. When the band stopped between numbers, the blonde approached our table, half-dancing in time to a tune playing only in her head.
“Hi there. Mind if we sit down? I find a chair much more comfortable than a bar stool, don’t you?” She addressed herself to Burke. He didn’t say anything.
I looked at him, then said: “Sure. Have a seat.” I got up to let the
redhead go behind me. Burke stood as well, out of an old-fashioned sense of chivalry perhaps.
“What are you drinking?”
The blonde answered: “Tequila for me, and she’s having club soda. She’s my designated driver. If I end up needing one, that is.” She looked across at Burke. He didn’t crack a smile, but reached for a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. I signalled the waiter and ordered drinks for everyone.
“I’m Monty, this is Brennan. And you are?”
“My name’s Louanne and this is Rosemary. We’re here from New Jersey on a course, and we’ve had enough of the classroom, wouldn’t you say, Rose? You don’t sound like you’re from here,” Louanne said in my direction.
“I’m from Nova Scotia.” She looked at me blankly. “Canada. You know, the country that runs for four thousand miles along your northern border?”
“Right. And what do you do, Monty?”
“I defend undesignated drivers.”
“Oh, a lawyer?” She turned to Burke. “And you, sir?”
“I’m a fellow who’s waited all his life to hear this band, the —” he squinted at a poster on the wall “— South of Blue. Sure and aren’t they starting up right now?” Burke twisted in his chair so he could give them his full attention. Louanne was unperturbed and sat there with her tequila, moving unrhythmically to the music. Rosemary listened with a polite expression on her face and tried to be discreet as she checked her watch. I wanted to speak into her ear without getting too close and coming off as a lout. After a few preliminaries, to which she responded courteously, I was able to have a mouth-to-ear conversation with her and she began to open up. Rosemary was recently divorced and had a ten-year-old son, William, so we talked about our children. She recounted some entertaining stories about her work and the bizarre characters who people offices the whole world over. Never willing to take second seat when bizarre work tales were the order of the day, I told her some war stories of my own.
The instant the band announced a break, Louanne filled the silence. “So Brennan. What’s your line? Are you a lawyer too? Or a client?” She laughed, and turned to Rosemary. “Kind of looks like a
hit man, doesn’t he?”
“You’ve never been safer in your life,” he answered.
“Oh yeah? What do you do?” Louanne persisted.
“I’m a priest, an expert on the Holy Trinity. Is there anything you’d like to know about it?”
“You’re shittin’ me. I don’t see any collar here —” She reached over and pulled at the neck of his sweater. He took her hand gently and put it back on the table.
“Is he?” Louanne turned to me.
“Afraid so,” I confirmed.
Rosemary nudged me with her knee and whispered: “What do you know? For once I’m on the right side of the table. Any other time I’ve gone out for a drink with Lou, I ended up driving her and some guy somewhere and going home by myself.”
“If you’re alone at the end of an evening, it could only be by choice,” I whispered back.
“Very gallant of you, Monty. But you’re right for the most part. The type of man you meet in a bar — present company excepted, I hope — is not usually the type you want to go home with. And the more persistent they are, the more likely they are to be bad news.”
“Well, I promise not to persist. But you don’t have to go home by yourself if you don’t want to. Is William taken care of for the night?”
“He’s with a sitter.” Music in my ears. Time to stop hitting the booze. I ordered club sodas for both of us.
At that point, our senses were caressed by a smouldering female voice. She started with a quiet, slow-burning little number I didn’t know. Then she launched into a scorching, estrogen-fired version of “It’s a Man’s World.” I took a break from chatting up Rosemary to give my attention to the tall, dark-haired siren at the microphone. I looked at Burke and saw that he was transfixed, oblivious of everything else in the room. Louanne sulked and downed her drink. When the woman brought the song to its blistering conclusion, the crowd went wild with applause. Everyone applauded, that is, except Brennan; the song hadn’t ended for him. He continued to gaze at her, then nodded his head in acknowledgement.
Rosemary and I were doing a bit of a shuffle about whether to order another club soda. Brennan, after snapping out of his reverie,
read the signs and leaned towards me. “Take both of them.”
“Both of them!” I exclaimed, seeing not the upright priest of tonight but his younger self in the sack with two women while deadly smoke curled up through the floor boards.
“I mean,” he said with exaggerated patience, “when you leave with Rosemary, take Louanne with you and make sure she’s safely on her way home. She’s had a skinful.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stay for the last set and head home to bed.”
Rosemary announced to Louanne that the special bus was leaving. Resigned, she gave a theatrical sigh and made ready to leave. “Good night,
Father. “
“Good night, dear. Safe home.” He smiled at Louanne for the first time, and her eyes lingered on him before she turned and walked out.
The night ended for me shortly after that. When we got to Jersey, Louanne wailed that she had forgotten her bag, and her house keys, in the bar. Could she stay the night with Rosemary? She could, and I didn’t.
But that bit of frustration was soon forgotten, as events careened out of control in Halifax.
You got my attention, now go ahead speak.
What was it you wanted, when you were kissing my cheek?
Was there somebody looking when you gave me that kiss?
Someone there in the shadows, someone that I might have missed?
— Bob Dylan, “What Was It You Wanted?”
I
The call came on Victoria Day, five days after my return from New York. I was spending the late May holiday with Tom and Normie, playing catch and goofing around in the backyard. Now Rowan Stratton’s announcement: he had reliable information that Brennan Burke could be arrested as early as the following morning on two counts of first-degree murder. The police had physical evidence tying Burke to both victims. And there was apparently a connection between a mark left on the bodies and the cross-shaped scar Rowan had described when this all began. A crucifix had imprinted itself on Brennan’s flesh in the heat of the infamous fire back in i960.
Brennan was not home when Rowan tried to reach him. I said I would take it from there, and I tried the rectory half an hour later. Father Burke was out for dinner. I did not hear from him until nearly ten that night.
“Monty. Brennan here. You called.”
“Yes. I have something to discuss with you.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’d rather see you in person. At your place.”
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“See you when you get here.” Click.
I drove downtown at top speed and went up to Brennan’s room. He came to the door in cut-off shorts and a worn black T-shirt.
“We have to talk, Brennan.”
“Surely we do, if you’ve come all this way at night. But listen to this first. Have a seat.” He moved some theological texts from a chair. “I’ve been asked to be guest conductor of the Halifax Symphony and the Recordare Chorus, for a segment of their concert next winter. Mozart’s
Coronation Mass,
and the
Kyrie in D Minor.
Now if that
Kyrie
doesn’t terrorize you back into the church, I don’t know what will. The opening chord —”
“Brennan! Listen to me.”
“You’ve got me troubled, Monty.”
I took a deep breath. “First things first. Take off your shirt.”
“What?”
“Let me see the scar. The imprint from that fire.”
“You’re losing me here.”
“It’s part of the evidence against you. Now show it to me.”
He gripped the arms of the chair and slowly stood up, never taking his eyes off my face.
“Evidence? It’s not evidence of anything. What the fuck are you talking about?” His quiet tone was more menacing than a shout as he moved towards me.
I stepped back. There was a real possibility that this man, a priest and a friend, was in fact a killer. I told myself not to be so melodramatic.
“Rowan’s been in touch with the police, Brennan. You’re facing arrest as early as tomorrow. Two charges of murder. Leeza Rae, Tanya Cudmore.”
His eyes moved to the closed door and back to my face. He took another step towards me. “I can’t be hearing you right.”
“There’s a mark on each of the bodies that matches what you’re supposed to have. I’ve never seen it.” I tried to put aside my apprehension as the news sunk in.
The next thing I knew he was stripping off his T-shirt, revealing a muscular chest and abdomen. Branded there just above his heart was the small, nearly complete image of a cross. The vertical bar was deeper and darker near the top, as was part of the crosspiece on Brennan’s left. The rest of the image was more faint. It looked as if the original metal crucifix had been slightly off centre and embedded unevenly in his skin. I examined the image for a long while, then looked up at his face, which was drawn and grey.
“Get me out of this,” he whispered.
“I need some information. Put your shirt back on. I have to know how many people have seen that scar.”
“What can I tell you? Everybody knows about it. All the old souls in the parish back home loved the story, little Brennan Burke being given a clout by God on the way to Damascus. The prodigal choirboy. On and on and fucking on.”
“I didn’t ask how many people know about it; I asked how many have seen it.”
“How the hell can I answer that?”
“Try. If it wasn’t you who killed those two women —”
“Monty, for the love of Christ. You know I didn’t kill anyone!”
“So it was somebody else. Somebody who wants to frame you or connect you to the killings. Now who would want to do that? I have to know.”
“I have no idea. I can’t imagine.”
“All right. Let’s go back to who could have seen the scar. I think we can leave aside, for the moment anyway, casual observers at the pool, or anything like that. We’re looking for someone very familiar with that imprint. Now, tell me. Who?”
“Well, Monty, I don’t get around much. Being a celibate priest and all.”
I made an effort not to lose patience. “Very well. Let’s start with people in this building. Do you go around with your shirt off here in the rectory? Would the other priests, the housekeeper, whoever is here, would they have seen it?”
“There’s only one other priest in this rectory. Mike O’Flaherty. We don’t sit around with our shirts off, but he may have been in here when I’ve come out of the shower. I don’t remember that happening,
but I can’t say it never did. And the housekeeper? Never. She’d be shocked that there’s anything made of flesh under the priestly garb.”
“People you exercise with, lift weights, go to the gym with?”
“I use a set of weights in the basement once in a while. Alone. When I go out for a walk, guess what, I’m fully dressed.”
On to the next set of questions. I did not see this — premeditated murder followed by mutilation — as a woman’s crime. But if we could eliminate all female suspects, we could move on to the men. And of course the police had a man in the frame for these murders: Burke himself.