The Haunting Ballad (16 page)

“Greetings, lady and gentlemen!” Without a drunken brother in tow, the young Irishman had reverted to his more upbeat nature. “Well, Mr. O'Nelligan, I'm not sure how many unrelated Paddies we're allowed to cram into one apartment. There may be some city ordinance preventing it. Do come in anyway.”

He ushered us into a small living room fitted out with a jumble of old, comfortable-looking furniture. The oldest thing in the room, by far, was seated in an armchair, scarecrow-thin and dressed in white, staring up at us with a quiet smile.

Tim gestured toward the ancient man. “I take it you gentlemen know the legendary Mr. Boyle, late of the Irish Brigade. Especially since you're standing in his abode.”

“Actually, we don't,” Mr. O'Nelligan said. “Except for a fleeting encounter in the hall yesterday.”

Tim spoke to our host. “Look here, Cornelius, yet another Irishman for your amusement.”

“All the better,” the aged man said in a voice rough and a bit labored.

“This would be Mr. O'Nelligan,” Tim explained, “and this here's Mr.… ah … Pickett, is it?”

“Plunkett,” I corrected.

“Oh, of course. How could I forget? Like Joe Plunkett, the poor young poet the Brits executed back in the '16 uprising. Any relation?”

“Not that I know of,” I said. “My Irish roots aren't too recent, and there's a lot of other things mixed in. I'm just an American mutt.”

Tim chuckled softly. “Well, America is the land of mutts, no denying. More power to you.”

Sally Joan had stepped over to Cornelius and now reached down to take his hand. “So good to see you again, Mr. Boyle.”

The centenarian wrapped the young woman's hand with both of his own. “You, too, you lovely girl.”

“Look at the man,” Tim said with affection. “A hundred and five years on the planet and still quick with the flattery.”

“What brings you here today, young sir?” Mr. O'Nelligan asked.

“Oh, not much. I like to stop by now and again for a little conversation. Sometimes I come with my brothers or Kimla, sometimes on my lonesome. Lorraine Cobble introduced us a while back. You see, Cornelius here was born in Galway like myself. Though, of course, he's got a few decades on me.”

Mr. O'Nelligan turned toward the old man. “I did not detect a brogue, sir.”

“You wouldn't,” said Cornelius, still cradling Sally Joan's hand. “I left Ireland when I was five.”

“I see. No doubt, ten decades will alter a man's tongue.”

“No doubt,” Cornelius echoed.

“I really should get a move on,” Sally Joan announced. “I've got a bus to catch.”

“I'll be departing, too,” Tim said. “I leave you in good hands, Cornelius.” He glanced at my partner and me. “I'm guessing you're here as part of your investigation?”

“Indeed we are,” Mr. O'Nelligan answered.

Sally Joan gently released herself from Cornelius. “Oh, Tim, come over to Lorraine's for a minute, will you? She had a couple of Irish songbooks that I'm sure she'd have been happy for you to have.”

She and Tim Doonan made their exit, leaving us alone with our prehistoric host. He gestured us toward the sofa, and we settled ourselves in.

“You're detectives,” he said slowly but clearly. “The girl told me you wanted to talk to me.”

I leaned forward and spoke extra loudly. “Yes, we would, Mr. Boyle.”

“Make it Cornelius. No need to shout. I've got real good hearing for a man my age. That's what the doctors tell me. Good hearing to go with my good eyesight. I've pretty fine legs, too. I go for a walk several times a week, you know. Down four flights and back up again.”

“Truly admirable,” Mr. O'Nelligan said.

“Yeah, I moved in here near three years ago, even though my family thought the stairs would kill me. There was supposed to be a ground-floor apartment for me, but that fell through. Way I see it, climbing those stairs is what's keeping me alive. That and taking a nap precisely at four o'clock every afternoon. Consistency, that's my secret.”

“So Lorraine Cobble's the one who brought you here?” I asked.

“Yes, she'd heard about me a while back and would come to visit. To learn some of my songs, you know. When I had to move from the place I was in, Lorraine helped set me up here. Nice of her. Of course, it made it easier for her to record those old songs from the war.
My
war, that is.”

“We understand you were a drummer boy,” Mr. O'Nelligan said.

“Second Corps, Caldwell's Division, Irish Brigade. I signed on as a drummer with the 88th New York when I was just nine years old. I was big for my age and claimed I was older. We were pretty much all Irishmen in the 88th. The whole brigade was. Anyway, Lorraine sure liked those old tunes. I'd sing her ‘Tenting on the Old Camp Ground' and ‘Aura Lee' and ‘Just Before the Battle, Mother.' Would you fellows like to hear one?”

Just as I was about to state that we needed to stay focused on our investigation, Mr. O'Nelligan declared, “We would be much honored, sir.”

“Here's one that got written after the war,” Cornelius explained. “Long time after. It's called ‘The Veteran's Last Song.'” Then in his creaky but surprisingly vigorous voice, the old man began (appropriately enough):

“I am standing on the summit of a century of years…”

He went on to sing of a generation that had known the sorrows of civil war, a generation of which he was one of the last men standing.

“We were boys when we enlisted and these wrinkled brows were clear

And our eyes were not dimmed in their vision.

The frost that never melts had not fallen on our hair

And our step had not lost its precision.”

The song ended with a longing lament for friends dead and gone:

“We're going soon to meet them in the bivouac of the soul

As the shadows around us give warning.

Oh, I want to see my comrades when the angels call the roll.

All are ready for inspection in the morning.”

The last words trailed off, and Cornelius gave a deep sigh, one befitting a century of living. “Lorraine particularly loved that song.”

“I can see why,” Mr. O'Nelligan said.

“She was a fine woman, Lorraine. The problem with living as long as I have is that you're forced to see so many die before you. When someone as young as her … well, it's just terrible.”

“How long were you acquainted with her?”

“Almost four years … or ninety-four, depending how you look at it.”

“Pardon, sir?”

The old man smiled slyly. “Think I've lost my marbles, don't you? No, no … I'll explain myself. It was back in 1863, early July, when my regiment found itself in Gettysburg.”

Foolishly, I started to ask, “
The
Gettysburg?” but caught myself in time. There was only one Gettysburg.

“I wasn't but eleven,” Cornelius continued, his voice seeming to grow stronger as he slid into the past. “Though I'd seen a thing or two of fighting by then. Of course, my weapon was a drum, not a rifle, but when those bullets get flying, they don't much care about age or intention. It was the second day of the battle, late morning. Our brigade chaplain climbed atop a boulder there to give us his blessing, and then they marched us out through the woods to a creek name of Plum Run. Just as I was about to cross, I heard something strange off to my right. Heard it even with the cannons booming up ahead. I turned, and there standing beside a tree on the edge of the creek was this woman with long blond hair, just staring off at nothing at all and singing. Yes, singing! There on the border of hell, in the midst of all these soldiers, she was singing to herself—some sweet, lonesome tune—like there was nobody around but her.”

“What was she doing out there?” Mr. O'Nelligan asked. “On the edge of a battlefield?”

“That I don't know. Maybe she'd gone to gather water or wash some garments. All I know is that she was there in the flesh—though I might have taken her for my own private ghost if I hadn't seen other fellows turn to look at her. Though everyone else kept hurrying forward, I stood frozen in place, just staring at her and hearing that song. I couldn't make out the words, but her voice was so lovely that an odd kind of calmness came over me. For one quick moment, she turned and looked straight into my eyes. Then I was being bustled forward by the men behind me, and I lost sight of her.”

“It sounds like something risen from a dream,” my partner said in his flourishy way.

“Well, if it was a dream, I woke up from it real fast. I suddenly found myself in a big wheat field, full of yelling and smoke and bullets ripping through the wheat stalks. Truth is, we drummer boys were supposed to drop back before things got too hot, but somehow I got caught up in the moment and kept advancing. Finally, one of our sergeants grabbed hold of me, screamed in my face, and told me to get the hell to the rear. Just then, a stray shot drilled that man clean through, and he died right there at my feet.”

“I've read a bit about the conflict at Gettysburg,” Mr. O'Nelligan said. “The Irish Brigade sustained many casualties that day, did it not?”

Cornelius Boyle nodded. “One out of every three of our men went down in that wheat field. After the sergeant fell, a bullet tore through my drum, and that was enough to get me scurrying in a rearwards direction. When I made it back to the creek, I looked around for the singing lady, but she was nowhere to be seen. Nowhere at all. As it turned out, Gettysburg was the end of my career in blue. A few days later, a packhorse kicked me in the side, breaking three ribs. They shipped me home, and I never did make it back into uniform.”

A few silent moments passed before I spoke. “It's all a compelling story, Cornelius, but how does it tie in with Lorraine Cobble?”

Our host smiled thinly. “You think I'm just rambling, don't you? Well, I'm not. The first time I met Lorraine, that's who she reminded me of—that woman by the creek. They both were fine-looking with long fair hair, and when Lorraine opened her mouth to sing me a song, it brought me straight back to that calm moment before the battle. So you see, I had a particular fondness for her because of that.”

“I know the police have already asked about the night she died,” I said. “Whether you saw Lorraine or not. Detective Wilton told me everyone on this floor was away that evening. Were you staying with relatives?”

“I definitely was not,” Cornelius answered firmly. “I was right here. The police didn't ask me a blamed thing. They never even spoke to me.”

Mr. O'Nelligan cocked his head. “Truly, sir? And you being her neighbor?”

The old man snickered. “I suppose they figured a fellow my age was too rickety to bother with. Of course, if they had asked, I would have told them I hadn't seen her that evening. Though there
was
someone I saw out in the hall that night. Someone I was surprised to see there at such an hour.”

My partner leaned forward. “Who was that?”

“Hector the delivery boy. Hector … ah … Escobar. Yes, that's it. Puerto Rican boy. His father owns a grocery a few blocks away. Hector comes by pretty often making deliveries to a few folks in the building, myself included. He'd already been by here a few hours earlier. That's why I was so surprised to see him again that late.”

“What time was that?” I asked.

“Oh, it must have been at least nine thirty, maybe closer to ten. I heard someone in the hallway and stepped out to see who it was. Just out of curiosity. Down the hall I saw this skinny young guy standing near the upper stairs—the ones that lead to the roof. The light's not too bright out there, but I could tell it was Hector. I called out to him, but he didn't say anything right away.”

“As if he were reluctant to respond?” Mr. O'Nelligan suggested.

“Maybe. So then I called out in Spanish because usually that's how we'd communicate. I spent a year in Mexico when I was young, and my Spanish is passable.”

“I see,” Mr. O'Nelligan said. “How did the conversation unfold?”

“Well, there wasn't much to it. I called out,
Hector, eres tu?
—Is that you?—and he answered,
Sí
. Then I asked what he was doing there at that hour, if he was delivering groceries. He said he was just stopping by to see if anyone needed anything.”

My partner continued the questioning. “Stopping by after hours like that—was it something he was likely to do?”

“Not in my experience. I just figured maybe his pa was trying to drum up more business by sending him back around. I didn't much worry about it. Just told him I was all set for groceries and headed back inside.”

“You say this was sometime between nine thirty and ten?” I confirmed.

“That's right. Maybe a touch later.”

Mr. O'Nelligan and I exchanged a glance. Nine thirty to ten
P.M
. That would fit right into the official time range when Lorraine Cobble had died.

“Cornelius, did you approach Hector when you saw him?” my partner asked.

“No, I just called down the hallway to him.”

“Might you show us the exact spot where he was standing?”

“Sure.” With the aid of his gnarled cane, the old man rose slowly and led us out into the hallway.

As I'd already noticed, the wall lamps were dim and didn't do much to illuminate the narrow corridor. Cornelius' apartment was at one end near the main stairwell, then came another apartment, then Lorraine Cobble's. All three doors were on the same side. As we knew from our previous visit, Lorraine's was directly across from a flight of iron stairs that led to the rooftop. Our guide paused us there.

“This is where Hector was standing,” he told us. “Between Lorraine's door and the roof steps.”