The Death of an Irish Lover (14 page)

“Locked,” said Bresnahan. “He probably couldn’t have told you where his temple was, much less put a gun to it.”

Pleased with herself, Noreen enthused, “And since it’s not on for me as a civilian to write reports, I have me own bit of information to add to the pot.”

She then related what she had overheard in the greengrocer’s shop about a certain woman who used to cook for Pascal Burke.

“I couldn’t make out everything that was said, so
I’m not sure it’s the same woman, but later the O’Rourke woman—Moira, I believe her name is—said, ‘Didn’t she take Tony Moran’s last pound with trips to Madeira and wherever.’ She also speculated that the woman, whoever she is, must have had a key, too.”

“To what?” McKeon asked.

Noreen shook her head. “By what she said to me later she might have intimated that her niece, Grace, had some involvement with Burke. Or she had herself at one time. In any case, she spoke highly of Burke and seemed to be upset in a contained way. I mean, the store was open for business.”

Bresnahan shook her head. “Maybe. But Gertrude McGurk surely has a well-furnished kitchen. Apart from her locked…fortress on the second floor, it’s the only complete room in the house. Also, Ellen Finn busted her.”

“Literally.” McKeon began reassembling the reports. “Only a few months ago. She could have been the one who put Burke’s biscuit in the oven and baked him to a turn.”

“Really, Bernie, must you?” Noreen complained.

“McGurk is a big strong woman, twice Ellen Finn in every way.” Bresnahan was now doodling a substantial black brassiere that had attracted Ward’s attention.

“Yet it was Ellen who thumped her, wasn’t it?”

“Probably because she had a gun at the time.”

“And McGurk could have had Burke’s before and after shooting him,” observed Ward. “You know the bit—it’s over for the moment, and he’s closed his eyes and is snoozing.

“‘I’ll be right back, luv,’ she tells him. ‘I’ve got to get something from me purse.’ Instead, she fetches his
Glock, tiptoes back to the bed, and plugs him through the heart.”

“Which only works with those who have hearts,” Bresnahan whispered to Noreen.

“Hughie, son—I commend you,” McKeon nearly chortled. “It takes a brave man to utter a thought like that to a mixed and possibly a mixed-up gathering.”

The two women only eyed him.

Unperplexed, McKeon slid the reports into a folder, looked up at them, and smiled. “Lads and lassies, if that’s all there is, let’s keep on dancin’. Namely, it’s time for me to get back to the bar.”

Their eyes were now on his throat.

McGarr straightened up and reached a closed hand to the center of the table, where he placed the beeper, the one that the child had dropped at the top of the millrace wall.

“Is it Ellen Finn’s?” Bresnahan asked.

McGarr nodded. “And the last three calls were made from the same phone number. Here. From the inn side of the premises. Not the public number, but one that is available to staff and registered guests.”

He stood. “Everybody have a lead?” he asked, since it had come to the time in the investigation when McGarr allowed his staff, given their experience, to follow their own hunches.

“But who will take Maddie today?” Noreen asked, when the others had departed.

“I will, if you like.”

“But you took her yesterday.”

McGarr let the silence convey his reply.

“And I suppose it’s unfair—you were up half the night and being in charge and all. No,” she decided, “I’ll take her, I will. So, you can do your job of work.”

Reaching out, she took his hand, her turquoise-colored eyes fixing his. “It’s just that I get so caught up, and guess what?”

McGarr canted his head, suspecting what was coming.

“I know who murdered them, and I know the scenario—how it happened and why.”

McGarr wrinkled his brow inquiringly.

“I just have to prove it.”

McGarr waited to learn more.

“No, no.” She released his hand and made for the stairs. “I don’t want anybody, like Bernie, carping about amateurs. When I have all my ducks in line, I’ll present them.”

“I’ll try to phone,” McGarr said to her back. “Maybe I can spell you later.”

At the reception desk, McGarr asked the attendant who had treated him so officiously the day before, “Is Grace O’Rourke on duty today?”

“Upstairs in the pub. She’s making up the rooms left from the day of the tragedy.”

“And where is Mr. Tallon?”

“Below in his office in the basement.”

Since he did not possess a passkey to the two doors at either end of the archway that linked the halves of the building, McGarr had to step outside, cross the cobblestones of the courtyard/car park, and enter the pub through the rear.

And curiously, not one member of the Fourth Estate was in sight at such an early hour, not even in the bar, which was shocking. Must all be sleeping after their taxing vigil waiting for him to return with some more bad news the night before, McGarr mused sourly.

A young barman, who was cleaning up, asked him if he needed something, but McGarr only waved him off, wanting to discover for himself how difficult it would be for somebody to admit himself to the staircase that led to the rooms upstairs.

But at the end of the bar, he could not quite reach the button that buzzed open the lock. A taller person with longer arms might, he speculated, and one whose
body was less ancient and sore. He tried again, lunging this time.

“Yo! Get out of that!” the barman yelled, moving toward him. “What do you think you’re doing there?”

The tip of McGarr’s finger, however, had grazed the button, and the bolt clicked back. McGarr eased his battered form off the bar and reached for the door handle.

“You can’t go up there.”

But the look that McGarr now fixed the barman with stopped him.

“You’re the police.”

McGarr stepped into the stairwell and glanced up at the long flight to the top. Arriving there slowly, he found Grace O’Rourke standing by a service cart at the end of the hall. But upon seeing him, she stepped into the room she had been cleaning and closed the door, throwing the lock.

McGarr rapped on a coffered panel. “Grace—I’d like a word with you, if I may.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Do I, now?”

“Because it’s the only right thing to do. There’s something you should have told me when we last spoke, and it’s critical that you tell me now.”

“Right for who?”

“Just right. Can I tell you about wrong?” She did not reply, so McGarr continued.

“Wrong was last night. Two of my staff could have been killed, and a little girl—Cara Frakes, perhaps you know her—nearly drowned in a millrace because I don’t know enough about what went on in the room across the hall before Pascal Burke and Ellen Finn were murdered.

“You do. And right most definitely is your telling me. Now. How much blood do you want on your hands?”

There was a pause, then the lock slid back.

McGarr stepped into the room and closed the door. Turning around, he beheld a Grace O’Rourke far different from the dowdy maid he had spoken to on the day before. Gone were the uniform smock, the lank hair, the serviceable shoes.

Instead, her hair was permed, her face made up, and this Prussian blue uniform had been tailored to her figure, with the hem raised well above the knees. Her stockings were black and patterned, and the matching shoes were pointed with enough heel to set off her narrow ankles.

In all, the outfit made it plain that Grace O’Rourke, while not a pretty woman, was youthful and shapely. And surely somebody whom—what had been Benny Carson’s term for Pascal Burke?—a
swordsman
would have found fetching, being so close at hand.

“Pascal preferred me like this,” she said self-consciously, her hands touching her thighs. “And it’s the least I can do to honor his memory.”

McGarr shook his head. “No. The least you can do is answer my questions. Who else slept with Pascal Burke on a regular basis?”

Her head was quivering, and McGarr could see tears welling up in her eyes. “Apart from you.”

As though having been slapped, she spun around. “What if I did? You didn’t know Pascal—his kindness, his caring. He was not at all like the men down in the bar with their carry-on about themselves. Always themselves and what they need and nothing of you.

“He remembered little things—my birthday, my
aunt’s, what looked good on me. Brought me presents, nothing grand but…And he could and did love me…” Her shoulders lurched, as she broke into sobs. “…in his own way. I’m certain of it.

“And what we had was special. I don’t give a damn who else he shagged or was shagging.”

McGarr waited for the sobbing to cease. “Like Gertrude McGurk.”

“That whore! That slut! There’s not a man in town she hasn’t shagged.”

Wheeling back on McGarr, Grace O’Rourke spread her hands across her stomach, pulling the material of the uniform dress taut. “See this, you bastard. See it?” Her face was running with tears, her features were contorted.

“This is Pascal’s child, what he left me. It makes me not like the others, and I intend to love and care for his baby. But what am I to do? You tell me. Work down in the shop with my aunt, as she wants, where every bloody woman in town would know my shame? At least here in the inn I’m in the company of strangers, and I can come and go without notice.”

“Except for Madame Sylvie, of course. Sylvie Zeebruge, your employer, whom you’re protecting. Tim Tallon’s wife. How many nights did she spend with Burke?”

Again Grace O’Rourke pivoted, turning her back to him, her shoulders heaving, her head down.

“Talk about access, Madame Sylvie lived here, while you had to go home. She had passkeys to the archway, even a key to his door. And with Tallon always out with his guests, fishing, having a jar, Burke and she lived like husband and wife.

“I wonder—could she be pregnant by Burke as
well? She’s still young enough, I gather. And a handsome woman. Junoesque.”

“So help me, if you don’t leave this room this minute, I’ll swear you tried to rape me,” she managed through her sobs.

“Your pleasure—there’s nobody about to hear you.” With her back still turned to him, McGarr stepped forward and, reaching up, plucked a small amount of hair from the back of her head.

Which was when she spun around with her arm outstretched and something in her hand. A knife.

McGarr lurched back, and it clipped by his face.

“Rape!” she screamed, cutting the knife this way and that, as McGarr backed toward the door. “He’s trying to rape me! Rape! Rape!”

When McGarr reached the hall, she kicked shut the door, and the blade of the knife punched through the coffered panel of the door, splintering the veneer.

Into one of three envelopes that he had removed from the writing desk in his room, McGarr deposited the several strands of hair that he had taken from her head, noting that some were complete with follicles, which were essential in revealing DNA. It was extremely difficult to determine DNA from a strand of hair alone.

While listening to Grace O’Rourke’s muffled sobs, he wrote her name across the front, then made for the stairs.

Down in the pub, McGarr yet again had to dodge several members of the press, who were drinking at the bar.

“Early for that, isn’t it, lads?” he asked, while moving toward Benny Carson, whom he could see at the other end of the long room.

“If you’d give us something to write about, there’d be no need for drink,” said one, sliding off his stool and following McGarr with pad and pen in hand.

“I’m sure you’d find a need,” McGarr shot back over a shoulder.

“Did Quintan Finn murder his wife and Pascal Burke and then commit suicide?” one asked.

“We’re waiting for the reports from the postmortem exams.”

“If it wasn’t Finn, do you have any suspects?”

“What about Donal and Manus Frakes, are they still suspects now that Finn has been found?”

“Have you made an arrest?”

“When I do, I’ll clear it with Phoenix Park, then gather you together as usual.” It was the location of Garda Siochana Headquarters in Dublin.

“Don’t tell us you’ve been down here—what?—three days now, and you’ve no leads?”

“Why not? I have no leads. I am categorically stumped, and that’s for attribution.” Arriving at Carson’s side, McGarr took his arm, and said, “Show me your office.”

“Ach—don’t give us that shite again, McGarr. We won’t fall for it a second time.”

Some years back during a case in which the press had been particularly intrusive, McGarr had told the most obnoxious reporter—“This is strictly off the record, is that understood?”—that he hadn’t a clue who had murdered a nun visiting her mother’s grave in Glasnevin Cemetery. “All my leads have turned out to be dead ends.”

The day after banner headlines proclaimed, “CHIEF COP STUMPED,” McGarr arrested a former priest for her murder. And the press reviled him for being duplicitous.

“Is Mr. Carson a suspect?”

“No.”

“Have the Frakes been arrested?”

“No.”

“Do you know of their whereabouts?”

“No, but if you do, please tell me.”

“Does that mean the Frakes are still suspects?”

“At this time, there are no suspects, and whoever reported that was doing you no favor. Like I said, I’m stumped.”

McGarr was now behind the bar with Carson, who used his unbandaged hand to open a low door; the two men stepped into a small room that contained only a desk, chair, and a rack of pigeonholes. There was also a door that appeared to lead farther into the building.

“C’mon, McGarr—we’re only trying to make a living here.”

“There are other occupations,” he observed, closing the door.

Carson eased himself against the desk and pointed to the chair. “Chief?”

“Why’d you ring them up with the story about Ellen Finn and Burke? And the Frakes.”

Carson touched his chest histrionically. “Me? Janie—I’d never do such a thing, considering how shabbily they’ve dealt with me in the past.”

“Why?”

Carson pulled a cigarette from a packet, then held it out to McGarr, who had remained standing. “Don’t tell me they’re not still suspects.”

“Why?”

Carson lit the cigarette, then batted the smoke from his eyes. “To speed their arrest and conviction on its way, I suppose.”

“Even though Manus Frakes is your son-in-law.”

Carson’s light blue eyes flashed at McGarr. “Manus Frakes is a murdering, thieving lout of a liar, and the sooner I can get my granddaughter out of his hands the better. That much I’ll admit to and no more.

“Manus and Finn murdered Finn’s wife and Burke, and then Finn did the decent thing and killed himself, just like I told your sidekick and my old friend, Bernie McKeon. I don’t care how many hours’ lapse it was between their deaths or how many bullets were or were not used.

“And as for the possibility that some other woman had been in bed with Burke shortly before Burke was shot, then that could be nobody other than Gertie McGurk, who’d fook a snake if you held its head.”

McGarr regarded the small older man, who was again wearing a hand-tied bow tie and Prussian blue tuxedo jacket. If nothing else, his police instincts told him Carson had been involved in one or all of the murders. “You told me you were the manager of this place, a leaseholder of the space. You told Bernie that you’re now thinking of buying it.”

“Sure—I only just decided myself, after Tallon came to me and said he was sick of the problems it’s given him over the years, the murders upstairs being the two final straws.”

“Where’d you get the money?”

“Now, what money would I have, Chief Superintendent? Me just having left the brig.”

“You tell me.”

“Not a lot, to tell you the truth. But Tallon likes my style and—apart from the recent tragedy—I run a quiet place. Tallon will hold the paper, and I’ll pay him from the profits of the place.”

Profits that Tallon would have been receiving anyway? Somehow, that did not scan.

Reading the doubt in McGarr’s face, Carson added, “What I mean to say is—the portion of the profits that had been going to me as salary for managing the place will now pay off the principal. And Tallon will continue to participate in the profits on a sliding scale, according to the percentage of the business that he owns.”

“The building included?”

“Half of the building from the middle of the archway down.”

“And the principal is?”

As though swearing to truth, Carson raised his bandaged hand, his eyes fixing McGarr’s. “I’d like to tell you that and more, really I would. But I’ve already said too much, Tallon having sworn me to silence on that score, since he’s rather a secretive chappie who doesn’t want the locals knowing his finances. If the figure gets out, it’s a deal-breaker, says he. And I believe him.”

“Why would he do something like that for you?”

“Money, plain and simple. The principal? What I can say is I probably won’t pay it off in my lifetime. But this place will be here and ticking on all cylinders, I’ll make sure, for my granddaughter in her time.”

“When are you taking over?”

“Soon. Sometime next week. Tallon wants out of here and fast. ‘The whole thing disgusts me,’ says he to me. His solicitor is working out the details as we speak.”

“And how will you live on no salary?”

“Sure, on air. It’s the big lesson you learn in the drum—not to want much. And to be honest, I don’t re
quire much. No car, I only live around the corner for little or nothing, since I take care of that place, too. And I’ve got the only girlfriends worth having—they go home to their parents and husbands at closing time.”

“Why did you tell me that Tallon’s wife Sylvie actually owned the business, and not Tallon?”

“Because that’s what he told me. Ask any local, and they’ll say the same.”

“What about your nephew?” McGarr suddenly felt like one of the reporters that he could hear grousing about his own “…stonewalling,” one now said through the door.

Carson cocked his head and took a final drag before stubbing out the butt; the small room was now filled with smoke, which only made McGarr crave one for himself all the more. “Do you want the, ‘Of course, we’re all broken up over poor Quintan’ or the truth?”

“Which is?”

“That he was a miserable little guttersnipe from birth, a truly bad seed, and Honora and Dermot are well shed of him. Too bad he had to take Ellen and Burke along with him.”

“How’s your sister taking it?”

Carson only hunched his thin shoulders. “Poorly, I hear. But right from the start Honora was a child of glass, forever complaining, always thinking of herself alone. And you know how women make too much of things.”