Blood on a Saint (41 page)

Monty spoke up. “Brennan, any advice for my boy?”

“Yes, em, keep going past the first door, my lad.”

“Why? What’s the first door?”

Brennan was trying to find a suitable answer when one of the bar’s regulars went rolling by and said, “That’s the Honeymoon Suite. That’s where
love
happens, boy!”

“
Honeymoon Suite
in the Flying Stag? What is he talking about?” Maura asked, looking to all appearances as if she knew she was not going to like the answer. “Tom, stay here.”

“Brennan,” Monty said, “fill him in, would you? You’re more familiar with the place than I would ever be.”

“Collins, why don’t you meet me outside door number four?” Brennan pointed to the exit. “We’ll settle this outside.”

“No need for that now, Father, when a little blues can say so much. This is one of my own compositions, if you’ll indulge me. I call it the ‘Dirty Shag Blues.’”

“Mum, does that mean the carpet is dirty in that room?” Little Normie, God love her.

“You have no idea, dolly,” Monty replied. “Why don’t you . . .”

His imagination apparently failed him, but Fanny took up the slack. “Normie, I have some juice packs in the car. Why don’t you and I and Dominic go out and get some?”

“Okay!” Normie took the little fellow by the hand and followed Maura’s friend from the bar, but not before Fanny left instructions: “I’ll expect a full report later, Maura.”

Monty advised his son to go past the bar and proceed to door number three, and Tom went on his way. Monty then gave them all a song, “Dirty Shag Blues,” thoughtfully dedicated to his dear friend and drinking pal, Father Brennan Burke:

“Met my baby in the toilet

In a place they call the Stag.

Yeah, met my baby in the toilet

In that place they call the Stag.

Got down and dirty with my baby.

I do anything for a two-bit shag.”

“You dedicated that song to
Father Burke
?” Maura exclaimed. “What did you do to deserve that, Brennan?”

“Nothing. I swear on all that is sacred, nothing happened in there. I mean, it started to happen, but not through anything I did. She just got in there, and got down on her . . . I put a stop to it.”

“Brennan, you’re babbling.”

“Yes, well, em . . .”

“I have never heard you so bereft of words, so inarticulate. Not since you were with Kiri Te Kanawa. I remember she left you speechless. Now it’s this other person. From what I can gather, you had a brief but intense relationship with both women, one on the concert stage, the other apparently in the Honeymoon Suite of this dingy bar. Are you torn between the two, Brennan? Would you like to talk about it? No?

“One thing strikes me about your dilemma. Kiri is of course brilliant, talented, beautiful, and world-renowned. But your Honeymoon Suite sweetheart has one big advantage, from your perspective. She is
available
.”

“No, all it was . . . I was standing by the sink, washing my shirt, and this one was there . . .”

“Spare us any further details, Father.”

Brennan hissed in Monty’s ear: “Make sure she knows nothing happened.”

“I will. In time. Leave it with me, Brennan.”

Brennan, having refrained from smoking up to then, lit up a cigarette, inhaled to the very pit of his being, then blew the smoke away from the table. He took a mouthful of his draft, his only draft, and turned with relief to the stage, where Dads in Suits were ready for the second and final set. Fanny returned with Dominic and Normie, treats in hand.

The band did a great job on some old blues standards, and then it was time for their big number. The culmination of a great night of music, the culmination of years of a family moving towards reconciliation. Tom and his sax man brought the house down with the Gary “U.S.” Bonds song “Daddy’s Come Home.”

Maura did not even try to hide her emotions. Tears sprang from her eyes. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. Brennan could see Monty struggling manfully to look pleasantly nonchalant.

“Why’s Mummy crying?” Normie asked, concern written all over her sweet little face.

Brennan found he had to clear a lump from his own throat before he could answer. “Sometimes people cry when their feelings are so powerful they can’t control them, even when they’re happy, sweetheart. Your mum is really happy. Because, em, I think your dad is going to move back home with the rest of you.”

“Yeah, he is! It’s going to be great having him home again!”

“Yes, darlin’, it is.”

Brennan looked at Monty and raised his glass. Monty returned the salute.

Chapter 21

Brennan

Well over an hour later, at twenty after ten in fact, Brennan was sitting on the bench facing the statue of St. Bernadette. Alone. Trying to fight off the fear that he had blown it. He had changed into his clerical suit and Roman collar, donned his winter jacket, and had come to the bench well before ten. And there was nobody else in sight. By going off to an evening of
ceol agus craic
, music and fun, and by deliberately postponing his meeting with Ignatius Boyle, he had scotched the chance to learn what role Boyle had played in the life, and maybe the death, of Jordyn Snider. Brennan was convinced that Boyle had been on the point of confiding in him, perhaps confessing. And Brennan had failed him. He would wait anyway; he would sit there for another hour in the cold, but he feared it would be for naught, the opportunity lost.

He sat, and tried to piece together what he knew about the murder, in case he never heard another word that would help solve the case. Ignatius Boyle had been found unconscious two minutes from here the night of the murder, with blood spattered on him. Pike Podgis had been seen leaving here with the victim’s blood on his shoes. The witness who saw him also heard other people in the street. Podgis had a photo of Ignatius Boyle and Jordyn Snider; he had the Yukon Street address. But nobody had the complete picture. If . . .

“Don’t you even think about it! It’s not going to happen!”

Brennan sat upright and listened. The voice came from behind him in Byrne Street, near the church. A young woman’s voice. He turned around.

“Please don’t!” She was almost crying.

“It’s better this way! I can handle it.”

Ignatius Boyle. And Maggie Nelson.

“I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting, Father.”

“Don’t worry about that at all, Ignatius. Hello, Maggie.”

“Hello.”

She stood at one end of the bench, on Brennan’s left. Ignatius was at the other end, on his right.

Maggie said, “We have something to tell you.”

Ignatius took two steps and reached Maggie, putting one hand behind her head and the other across her mouth.

Brennan got to his feet and moved towards them, ready to pull Ignatius off the young woman, but Maggie twisted her head free and said, “It’s all right, Father.”

Brennan stared at them. What were these two people doing together? Maggie knew about the Polaroid of Ignatius and the young murder victim in a naked embrace; she had clearly not been surprised when Burke had mentioned it to her on their earlier meeting. So, knowing that, what was she doing with Ignatius Boyle, alone with him before they arrived here, in her house with him on past occasions as well? Had this man, disadvantaged and eccentric but to all appearances spiritual and kind, had he worked his way into these young women’s lives, their confidence? What had Boyle said when he and Brennan spoke the first time, something about girls and their boyfriends? What was going on? There was something very disturbing at work here.

“He didn’t do it,” Maggie said.

“Podgis?” Brennan asked. He watched Ignatius, who was gazing intently at Maggie.

Maggie was shaking her head. “I didn’t mean Podgis. I know you suspect it was Ignatius. It wasn’t.”

Why was she covering for him? What was the peculiar relationship at play here? Brennan fixed his eyes on Ignatius, who refused to meet his gaze.

Brennan asked him, “Ignatius, did you kill the young girl?”

It was Maggie who replied. “He didn’t.”

“Why won’t he answer me then?”

“He wants to take the rap for this. Serve the prison term. He wants to protect me.”

“Protect you from what? From whom?”

“I killed Jordyn.”

†

That was all Brennan was going to allow her to say out in the open. Whatever evidence there was against Maggie Nelson, it was not going to be supplemented by anything overheard by unseen persons on a quiet night in his churchyard. Maggie was standing there, shell-shocked, as if she too had heard for the first time who had committed the murder.

Ignatius was shaking his head. “You don’t have to do this, Maggie. I’ll plead guilty to it. I can do the time. What have I got to lose? You have the little girls. What will they do without you?”

“No, Ignatius, please! You can’t. I — ”

Brennan put up his hand to silence them. “Maggie, I want you to come inside with me. Ignatius, you leave us now while I talk to Maggie. Do you have a place to sleep tonight?”

“Of course, yes, don’t worry about me. Maggie, you talk to Father Burke. He will help you. And remember, my offer still stands.”

Ignatius went off into the night, and Brennan gestured for Maggie to walk ahead of him into the parish house. They did not say a word until they were in his room with the door shut.

Then she turned to him and said, “I did it because of what she did to me. And what she threatened to do to Celia and Florrie.”

He knew that whatever this was, it was going to be excruciating. He wanted to establish the groundwork first.

“Sit down now, Maggie. Let me get you a cup of tea.”

“No, no, that’s okay.”

She sank into the chair on one side of his work table; he sat in the other.

“Maggie, are you a Catholic?”

“Yes. But I haven’t been to Mass very much.”

“That’s all right. Would you like to make a confession to me?” If he could get her behind the seal of the confessional, where Podgis had been . . .

“Yes, I want to talk to you. But I’m still going to tell the police what I did.”

“No. If you are going to tell anyone outside of this room, you are going to tell a lawyer, not the police.”

She had started to tremble. “Okay.”

“If you decide to go that route, I will take you to see a very good defence lawyer. Now take all the time you need, and tell me what you have to say.”

She avoided his eyes as she began her story. “I knew there was a guy in the background. There always is. There’s always a guy and, no matter how low he is on the food chain, no matter what kind of a bottom-feeder he is, there’s a girl or a group of girls who want to go out with him. Girls who will go along with
anything
. They accept everything, they support everything, doesn’t matter how horrible it is.”

He could feel the table shaking from the trembling of her arms on it. Her voice was barely under control.

“He hid behind the curtain and pulled the strings. And the puppets danced along. They were there to do his bidding.”

“They?” he asked quietly.

“Jordyn and her best friend, Jade. They tortured me.
Tortured
me. At the request of Jordyn’s boyfriend. Because that’s what he wanted to see. I didn’t know who he was until a few months later, when I saw a story in the paper about this guy who raped a girl and beat her up. She was in the hospital for weeks. He got caught and went to court. The news story gave his name, Brandon Toth. And the story said there were two teenage girls who came to court to support him. And they giggled the whole time during the hearing. It was Jordyn and her friend. So I knew it was the same guy. He got sent to prison for eight years. Should have been eighty years. But anyway, he got his punishment and he’s still in there. So all I had to do was punish his two helpers. His supporters. The courtroom gigglers. I hated them even more than I hated him!”

Brennan stayed silent. Anything he said, any stupid question, might only add to her pain. She was weeping by this time, and he longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he knew he had to let her get it out her own way.

“I hated them more because they should have been on my side. They were traitors. Traitors are hated by their own side even more than enemies are! Look how they get punished by their own people when they get caught.”

Brennan had only to think of the dirty war in the North of Ireland to acknowledge the truth of this.

“They betrayed me and other girls everywhere by going along with this sex criminal. They didn’t even have a motive of their own! It wasn’t providing any sexual thrill for them. They weren’t blinded by some kind of sick desire or anything like that. They knew it was wrong; they had nothing against me at all, but they did it anyway. They
went along
! Empty vessels to be filled with other people’s poison.”

Maggie did an imitation of an official courtroom voice.

“Why did you do it, Jordyn?”

“Uh, ’cause, like, he wanted me to. So I was, like, ‘Okay! Tee-hee.’ Fucking idiot.” She looked out the window and said in a soft voice, “I despise people who
go along
.”

“When did this happen, Maggie?”

“When I was sixteen. They invited me to a party in somebody’s basement. It was outside the city somewhere. The other girl drove, and she went around so many twists and turns I had no idea where we were. And they covered my eyes when they dragged me out the next day, so I couldn’t see the way back or where we were coming from. They tied me up. I tried to fight them off but the other girl was too strong. So they did things to me. I was crying and screaming with pain, and begging them to stop. But nobody heard me except them, and the guy who ordered the torture. Brandon. I guess he was in the house somewhere too. Listening or watching through a hole in the wall, I don’t know. And the things they did were where my clothes would be over the injuries, so you couldn’t see them after. There was sick stuff they did, and took pictures. I wanted to kill myself. And they knew it, and laughed about it. I think they wanted me to do it.”