The Death of Love (32 page)

“But aren’t there more senior—”

“I’ll take care of that. But I also want Bernie McKeon advanced to superintendent. Also I want a writ, back-dated to Tuesday last, allowing me to install a listening device in room two-sixteen at Parknasilla.”

“Ah,
McGarr
—who do you think I am? I only own a newspaper. No judges, no courts.”

McGarr waited until he heard Harney grunt.

“And finally I want Ward’s first official act as acting superintendent backed by you, your son, and all the resources at your command including the paper. No matter what it is.”

“You ask too much. I can’t be giving you
carte—
” There was a pause and then: “Can’t you at least tell me what it’ll be?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you won’t like it. At first. Ultimately, you’ll see, it’ll be good for your son, who’ll be perceived as his own man.”

“Ah, Christ—what
is
this, McGarr? You playing politics now?”

“You do all the time. The difference is, I hold the cards, and not in a manner of speaking.” He waited again. “Now—do we have a deal?”

“No! Of course not! I need to know chapter and—”

McGarr rang off.

Seconds later the phone rang again. “Never,
ever
, hang up on me again. Is
that
understood? Nobody hangs up on Harry Harney,” he blustered over what sounded like his sempiternal cigar. “McGarr? You there, McGarr?”

“Do we have a deal?” McGarr asked in a mild voice.

“Of course we have a goddamned deal. You just better keep your half of the bargain.”

“Ditto.” McGarr again laid the receiver in its yoke.

Now he only had Noreen to assuage. Doubtless he would hear how history, of which she was a twice-degreed handmaiden, had been corrupted. Fortunately life was more complicated than history and definitely more forgiving; and she would still love him even though he was wrong.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC cemetery in Sneem lies to the north of the village, along a road that leads to the mountains. It has been placed on a hill with all graves facing east and the rising sun.

The monument that says
BRESNAHAN
was erected in the nineteenth century; its limestone obelisk is worn smooth and looks almost translucent at the edges, like mother-of-pearl. Smaller stones that mark the graves of individual members of the family span a wide arc near the crest of the hill.

After the requiem mass to which he arrived late and left early, newly appointed Acting Chief Superintendent of the Serious Crimes Unit Hugh Ward got to the cemetery much in advance of the funeral cortege. Without the aid of his driver he mounted the snowy hill. Walking slowly with cast and cane through the flowered mounds of the several freshly filled graves, Ward wondered how many he might have saved could he have exerted more force on the wheel and crashed Gladden’s hurtling truck into a wall or a building. Not his own life, for certain.

Which was guilt, he decided—that he was alive and they were dead. In this churchyard alone there were four new graves that he could see. Five now when he came upon and nearly stumbled into the freshly dug hole for “Thomas Aloysius Bresnahan.” And still there was Power, Ward thought, turning his face into wisps of wind-driven
snow toward the very pinnacle of the hill where stood a short, wide woman silhouetted against the dun winter sky.

She was wrapped in a long black fur coat and a stylish Cossack hat to match. Down in the car park was a black chauffeured Rolls, in which, Ward assumed, she had come. With strong, sure steps she approached him. “You’re Inspector Ward. Or, rather, newly made Chief Superintendent Ward, who saved all those people at the bridge. I congratulate you on your promotion.”

Ward said nothing, only regarded her dark, quick eyes and tanned, leathery complexion that he had seen before. Given her coloring and regular features, she looked not a little like Ward himself, and he imagined that an observer, seeing them standing there, might mistake them for mother and son.

“I’m Nell Power,” she went on. A slight smile now bracketed the corners of her mouth, and her eyes glinted as they played over his face. “I was just saying a few prayers for Paddy, who’ll need them. Before leaving for Dublin.

“Who’s this?” With a toe of her shoe she nudged a little dirt into the grave. “Ah, yes—Tom Bresnahan, a big, strong, sober farmer. A good man and true, if you fancy the type.”

“You don’t?”

Nell Power made a face. “Not really. Oh, I suppose, he was great for a father. Raised a rare, handsome daughter, he did, though I suspect you know more about her than you’d let on to me.”

“Shane Frost is more your type?”

“When he’s handy. Actually young, dark, daring fellas, such as yourself, are more my cup of tea.”

To be quaffed off at a swallow, Ward thought, remembering how she had taken Frost.

“If I give you my card, will you promise to stop round? I have a wee place in Herbert Park. Call first. I’ll make sure we’re alone.”

“Interview, you mean?”

“Intriguing word, isn’t it? But I suppose you have many intriguing interviews.”

“A perk of the job.” Ward smiled into her black eyes.
“Is it the Eire Bank shareholders meeting you’re returning for?”

She nodded. “Pity what happened to Gretta when she had so much to live for. Now, I suppose, some foundation will benefit from all her hard work and sacrifice.”

“Like with your husband’s estate.” Frost had announced that the bulk of Power’s great fortune would be left to the Paddy Power Fund, which would continue to support Irish charities.

She nodded. “Being in service to Paddy could not have been easy.”

Following him into the grave harder still, Ward thought.

She glanced down the road where a hearse and funeral cortege had appeared. She removed a card from a pocket and slipped it into Ward’s hand, her long fingernails grazing his palm. “I understand you’re an athlete. Perhaps we can golf together.” Or swing, her smile said. “I could teach you a thing or two, I’m sure.”

Ward raised an eyebrow.

“About life, don’t you know. Winners and losers. Your former chief wasn’t educable, but now it’s your Murder Squad, isn’t it? I must be off now.”

“Not staying for the ceremony?”

“I think my welcome would be in some doubt. Had Paddy not been—what’s your term for his death?”

“Murdered.”

“—T. A. Bresnahan might still be alive. There’re sure to be some who think I wanted nothing less, absurd as it is. But that’s Kerry.” She clasped the sable collar to her throat and turned to her car.

And thus Ward was standing alone by the open grave when the funeral procession arrived.

Rory O’Suilleabhain got out first and helped Bresnahan and her mother from the lead car. He then joined McGarr, O’Shaughnessy, McKeon, and two other men, who by their dated funeral suits were obviously from the area.

O’Suilleabhain himself would benefit from Bresnahan’s tutelage, Ward thought, thinking of the phone call he had had with McGarr earlier in the morning. O’Suilleabhain’s topcoat was also out-of-date. The vent was too long, the
hem too short, and the cut too small through the shoulders; he was showing too much wrist, collar, and bum, especially now in bending with three of the other men to lift the coffin from the hearse. McGarr in his bandages merely walked at its side.

Bresnahan approached Ward, careful of the snow and ice and holding the arm of a tall, dark, much older woman who was evidently her mother. “How are yah?” Bresnahan asked. Their eyes met for only a moment before she wrenched hers away.

“I want you to meet my mother. This is Hugh Ward, the Guard who—”

“So sorry,” said Ward, taking her bony hand.

“Oh, yes. Your…
colleague
.” Apparently she and Bresnahan had discussed him, and she did not care for the word. Or him. “You’re the young man who, they’re saying, saved so many others.” Her eyes flickered toward the grave.

“And you, me, and Rory, Ma—if you’ll remember. We were right in the path of the thing, before the wheel turned.”

Her mother nodded, but her eyes had suddenly filled with tears.

Said Bresnahan to Ward, “Are you coming back to the house afterward? The Chief and Bernie and the Super—”

But O’Suilleabhain was now by their side, all puffed up with himself. “Yes, you must. You’re—”

“Hugh Ward.”

“That’s right. I met you at Parknasilla just before—And then it was you who—” O’Suilleabhain’s voice was too vibrant; his immense mitt came out and engulfed Ward’s hand.

Said Ward, “I’m sorry to hear about your mother. And your friend.” He turned his head to the open grave.

“Thanks. Thanks so much. I’ll see you back at
Nead an Iolair
.” And he was off. The priest had arrived. O’Suilleabhain was definitely the man in charge. Ward now noticed that the press was also in attendance. Photos were being taken, and several journalists were approaching him.

“See you there?” asked Bresnahan, as her mother began moving toward the priest.

“If you like.” Ward moved toward McGarr, who was adept at handling the press; Ward could take a lesson.

“Hughie—how goes it?” McGarr said, smiling to see Ward back in dapper form and at least his face unmarked from his skirmish.

“I’ve been better. And yourself?”

McGarr tried to raise his arms. “I’d phone Amnesty International, could I reach the dial.”

A flashgun burst in their faces, and O’Shaughnessy stepped forward to have a word with the offending cameraman.

Said McGarr to Ward, “I’ve a present for you from Noreen and me. To celebrate your promotion.” He indicated the pocket of his topcoat. “You’ll have to dig it out yourself.”

A bottle, Ward thought as he reached down and felt the weight in the pocket. After his experience in the bar at Parknasilla, he didn’t think he’d ever drink again. His hand came up with a tape recorder of the sort that were now used to take notes. It was tiny, slim, and black, and could easily slip into a pocket or a purse. Under the earplug cord, which had been wrapped around the body, was a note from Noreen.

“Follow the instructions, then follow your nose,” said McGarr cryptically. “You going back to the house?”

Ward nodded, as he studied what he could see of the note.

“Ride with us.”

Said McKeon, “Why, for Jesus’ sake, when the young dodger has himself a driver?”

Ward turned to McKeon and O’Shaughnessy who, after all, were more senior and should have been offered the Murder Squad command ahead of him.

“Not to worry,” said O’Shaughnessy. “It’s all part of a grand plan, you’ll see.”

Before Ward could ask what, the priest raised the cross he was carrying and asked the Three-in-One God to bless His son Thomas and the souls gathered there. Mindful of the snow, which was squalling now, he hurried through the
ceremony. A handful of dirt was tossed on the casket, followed by the usual convey of bright, descending flowers, and soon they were back in the cars.

Said McKeon to Ward, “Was that Nell Power you were chatting up when we pulled in?”

Ward was trying to peer through the shaded glass of the first car. It was the seating arrangement in the limousine that concerned him.

“Was it her card she slipped in your pocket?”

Ward nodded again, and McKeon’s hand appeared in front of him. “She’s more my speed.”

“Dead slow,” said O’Shaughnessy.

“Play Hughie the tape,” said McGarr. And to Ward, he explained, “We had it dubbed and the sound improved, in case anything should happen to the one in the machine. Voice-activated. Noreen placed the thing next to the receiver of the baby monitor you put in Frost’s room, and forgot it in all the tumult after the bridge.”

“The other lucky part is the phone call,” McKeon went on, inserting a tape in the dashboard player of O’Shaughnessy’s car. “It identifies both of them. With a voice match, we’ve been told, it has a good chance of holding up in court. They’ll fight it, of course, but I’m thinking we can get one or the other of them to crack.”

McKeon adjusted the sound, and through what had become a driving snow storm they listened to the voices of Shane Frost, Gretta Osbourne, and Nell Power in Frost’s Parknasilla suite on the night that Osbourne died. It was as much music to their ears as they could hope to hear.

When the tape had finished, McGarr turned to Ward, who offered his hand. “Thanks, Chief.”

“Nothing like a fast start.”

“Or a slow ending,” said McKeon. “Where is this place? I always knew Rut’ie was a hick, but this is re-dick-i-liss.”

The line of cars had stopped so the limousine could negotiate the stone walls of the entrance gate. The four men in O’Shaughnessy’s car looked up.

Because of the snow and the house, which was painted white, they saw only a great swath of ivory mountain bounded by sea and storm sky. In the middle was a long,
welcoming band of yellow-lighted windows with jets of fine blue peat smoke spewing from four separate chimneys. The barns, hayricks, and stables, which lay beyond, had been set off in a pretty semicircle, as if dug into the lee flank of the mountain, and on the windward, ocean side a sentinel copse of towering Norwegian spruce stood as a break. Those too were covered with snow, and looked like they had been composed with artistic care.

Said McKeon, “I always wondered where they got those pretty scenes for Christmas cards. Now I know. Janie—why didn’t Rut’ie ever let on the place was heaven.”

Janie?
McGarr thought. When was the last time McKeon had uttered a euphemism of such delicacy? In the next moment he would be claiming he misspoke himself. “The way Rut’ie explained it to Noreen—all we can see to the left, Rut’ie and the mother now own. All we can see to right nearly back to the village—”

Three heads followed McGarr’s hand, which pointed in that direction.

“—is O’Suilleabhain’s.”

Because of the snow, they could not see that far, but it looked like leagues.

The breath Ward pulled in was nearly audible. The layout explained so much. Sure, O’Suilleabhain was a big, handsome, and undoubtedly capable culchie, thought Ward. And, sure, his prospects were excellent. But what Ward was looking at here was perhaps the most beautiful—how many? five blinking miles, maybe—of Ireland that he had seen in a long time. Especially under the present conditions. And how could anybody (even the woman he loved and who loved him, he suspected) reject out of hand the possibility of uniting both massive parcels in the only kind of perpetuity that meant anything to the people who lived out here? Hadn’t she explained so herself?

And there
he
was, a no-longer-exactly-young man who possessed only a bachelor pad, which was mortgaged to the eaves, thousands of pounds of credit-card debt, and the reputation as a amateur pugilist of note, which would get him nothing but a pat on the back and the probability of an aneurysm at sixty-five. Also, there was the superinten
dency that only made him realize how much McGarr, O’Shaughnessy, and McKeon had done for him.

A few minutes later they found themselves in the warm and commodious farmhouse. Ward enjoyed friendly people. He also liked the sense of community, which, as a Dubliner, he had long since learned to do without and which he felt here. Everybody seemed to know who he and McGarr and McKeon and O’Shaughnessy were. Soon they had drinks and were shown a banquet board that was brimming with roasts and hams, potatoes in a variety of preparations, then fresh and pickled things in a number that he had not seen in some time. As well as breads, cakes, and pies.

Ward also liked understated things that allowed the simple quality of an object to declare its presence. The floor of the kitchen was slate, flagged and solid. Whole inches, Ward thought. Heels fell on it as though landing on the bedrock of the mountain. The woodwork was black walnut. An Aga, such as McGarr had in his own kitchen—but larger, grander, definitely a classic—squatted like a warm, smiling Buddha against an interior wall of the kitchen.

The furnishings of the dining room, which was crowded with people, and a sitting room and parlor, were motley but solid, and everybody seemed anxious to meet and speak to him. Bresnahan’s parents had had the sense—to say nothing of the readies—to buy quality. Why had she never told him any of this? He had thought they were…peasants, pure and simple. Did it matter that they were more? Of course not. But—