The Death of an Irish Lover (22 page)

“He’s no proof—” Tallon began to say, before Carson spoke over him.

“The woman signed the bill of sale, the deed, and the transfer has been filed, my solicitor assures me.”

“Didn’t I explain it all to him yesterday?” Tallon put in.

“And whatever little problem Tom and I have can be worked out later.” Lighting a fresh cigarette, Carson glanced up at Tallon, who avoided his stare.

“But your imaginative line of reasoning intrigues me, Chief Superintendent,” Carson continued, blowing out the smoke. “And, Tim—it’s always helpful to know where your attackers are coming from. So as not to be sniped at from afar, don’t you know.”

“Sounds like a veiled threat to me, Tallon,” McKeon observed.

“Not at all, not at all. I’d never think of such a thing—me, a frail old man with only former jailbirds and loonies for friends.

“And Tim, boy, did you not hear what the Chief implied? That the ‘wife,’ our benefactress, plugged poor Pascal Burke. Bingo, right through the nut. Now, why ever would she do such a thing?” Carson gestured with the cigarette, pointing to McGarr’s chest. “You to play, sir.”

“Because she was enraged that Pascal Burke had returned from Dublin and sought out the company of another woman, and that other woman was Moira O’Rourke, who had taken Antony Moran away from her. Also, she knew that the O’Rourke woman was with Burke, having bumped into O’Rourke, who used the archway for access to Burke’s room.”

“You have proof of that?”

“They were seen arguing in the inn, early Friday afternoon.” McGarr was guessing here; but who else could it have been?

“By whom, may I ask?”

“Your own Gertie McGurk.”

“A witness who can be made to swear. Or perform in any way that you choose, for a price. Continue, please.”

“After their ‘session’ was over, Burke fell asleep, and O’Rourke picked up her clothes and went into the toilet to dress and leave. That’s when Sylvie Zeebruge entered the room with her passkey.

“Any noise she made wouldn’t have awakened Burke, who would have thought it was Moira O’Rourke perhaps leaving or coming back for something that she’d left behind. Anyhow, he was through
with her for the moment. And who else did he possibly have to fear with so many of the women in town virtually worshiping at his feet?

“Sylvie Zeebruge knew where his uniform and gun were, of course, having been in bed with him herself doubtless on numerous occasions. Also, she knew guns from an early age, her father having been a huntsman, and she a hunter herself.

“Taking the Glock from its holster, she moved to the bed and performed a kind of coup de grace on Burke—putting the philanderer out of the misery of his mid-life crisis. And ending her…pique, I’ll call it, with him, men, and trying to find somebody special in her life different from you, Tallon.”

Who had nothing to say for once.

“Why didn’t she shoot Moira O’Rourke?” Carson asked.

“Because there was no sign of her, and the report of the unsilenced gun was loud. The killer panicked.”

“I can’t fathom how you concluded it’s Madame Sylvie, who’s the gentlest person. A veritable lamb.”

“Because she left the scent of her perfume in the room, O’Rourke reported. Something she had never smelled before.”

Carson began chuckling. “It could be she never smelled horseshit before either, ‘stupor-intendent.’ But I do at the present moment.”

He turned to Tallon. “Tim, boy—you’re the expert on fishing here. You should show this poor man how to do it properly.”

“Sylvie returned to her room,” McGarr continued, “and phoned you, Tallon. And when you got up to her room and were informed about what had happened, the two of you argued.”

Said Carson, “Surely, that’s another report from Gertie.”

“No, Moira O’Rourke.”

“Your ear-and-nose witness.” Carson turned to Tallon. “Tim, this whole ball of wax gets better and better. We’ll laugh about it in years to come, so we will.”

“And you, Tallon—in a panic you rang up Carson here, who would know about such things as getting rid of bodies or covering up crimes, being experienced. You spoke at length and then met at the murder scene.”

“To marvel at Pascal Burke’s capacious mickey, which at last we got to see, don’t you know.”

“And you, Carson—having the knack—devised a plan so much in your self-interest that you would at once rid yourself of your hated son-in-law, gain custody of your granddaughter, and enrich yourself beyond the ken of any recently released professional convict. Suddenly, you’d have family, place, status, and steady money.

“Tallon, here, would also benefit immediately. He’d have the whip hand over the wife. And the purse. Convincing her must not have been hard for you either, Carson, with all your tales of life in the drum.

“And look at the alternative. If she goes up for Burke’s murder, both of you are two old unemployed men, but at least you, Carson, wouldn’t have been thrown out on the street.”

Carson had lit yet another cigarette. With his thumb he picked at the filter. “Academically, now, with not an admission of the slightest bit of guilt, I ask you why didn’t whoever tried to cover up Burke’s murder simply go get Moira O’Rourke and have her death look like a suicide? Distraught, like, after having banged her banger?”

“Anybody even remotely acquainted with Moira O’Rourke would find that impossible to believe.”

“Ah, now, Chief—you must know better than I—it happens. Women of that age with unrequited marital ambitions, why, nothing’s beyond them. And Moira would probably have made note of that in a departing statement.”

Said McKeon, “The question would have been how you could have managed her death at that moment with time running out. First, you would have had to find Moira O’Rourke. Second, you’d have had to get her into the room. Alive? Not after what she’d witnessed. And killing her someplace else would be messy at best.

“But Ellen Finn would surely come to the room, after being paged. She worked for Burke. And weren’t Manus Frakes and her husband, Quintan, right there on the scene. And it all came to you, Benny—how you could put it together.”

McGarr cut in. “You and Tallon, here, got her up to the room, and you knocked her out with a blow to the side of the head right when she was coming in the door, I bet. So it was you, Carson, who struck her, not his nibs here.” McGarr’s eyes swung to Tallon.

“Then the both of you stripped her, put the item of lingerie on her, and it took your combined strength to place her on top of him.

“Tallon—who couldn’t watch and you wouldn’t have wanted him to watch, since a graphic eyewitness in court whenever he cracked would damn you—was dispatched for the condoms and lubricant. And even that he bungled, selecting an out-of-the-way country chemist who’s lucky to sell a packet a month.

“And we have a positive ID that it was you, Tallon,
who bought them. The girl behind the counter will swear to that.”

“Girl?” Carson asked. “How old a girl?”

“Fourteen.”

“Another expert witness, Tim. Unimpugnable.”

“She described you to a double B, Tim.” McKeon pointed to Tallon’s waist. “As in belt buckle. I wonder how many men in Ireland, who’ve been positively identified in a photograph, possess one of those?”

“And while Tallon was away,” McGarr went on, “you completed the ugly business, Carson. You lined her head up with the wound in Burke’s chest as well as you were able, and fired down. But it was a messy business nonetheless, and you had to get rid of a shirt and take the bold step, for a man used to years of living with only one change of clothes, of buying another.”

“Isn’t it amazing, Tim, how thorough the man is? Only three days in town, and he’s been into everybody’s closets.”

Said McKeon, “There was your skill as a forger and raconteur with your tales to Peter and me of a long-term affair between Ellen and Burke.

“Being light on your feet, you even offered us Gertie McGurk, when informed that it was probably a woman who had murdered Burke. Didn’t she live with the Frakes?”

As though tiring of the chat, Carson shook his head. “And I suppose you’re going to throw Quintan’s suicide into the mix?”

McGarr only waited.

“Why would anybody murder his nephew? The son of the sister whose husband had been so good to him?”

“To deflect suspicion, since only a total surd—the
term you used when speaking of Donal Frakes, if you remember—would murder his sister’s son. But who else could more easily have got him drunk and suggested a reconnaissance of the Shannon than you, his uncle?

“Did you get more blood on that shirt, holding Quintan’s hand on the gun and pulling the trigger? Or those spiffy bar jackets?” McGarr pointed to the Prussian blue uniform coat that Carson was wearing. “I bet if we were to conduct an inventory we’d find one shy.”

“Aren’t they shy altogether, Tim?” Carson asked. “Always walking out of here whenever your back is turned. Didn’t you stop in for a wet at a bar in Athlone the other day, and find a barman wearing one and bragging about having ripped it off?”

Without raising his eyes from the floor, Tallon nodded. “That’s true.”

“What’s also true,” McGarr went on, “is that murderers, like you two, always try too hard. In addition to the condoms, there was all the nightwear stuffed into the drawers of Ellen Finn’s dresser. She was a small woman.

“The items you added had been purchased by a tall, big-chested woman, somebody about the size of Gertie McGurk. Which worked for you, as long as McGurk was a suspect. It was more of the clever touch, wasn’t it Carson? In case the thick Guards sent down from Dublin got that far.

“But Gertie McGurk has no need for underwire cups, not with implants.”

“Come, Tom—we don’t have to listen to his salacious suppositions regarding women’s breasts, artificial or otherwise. Trust me—they don’t have enough evidence to charge a soul, and they should be after the
Frakes and their whore, what done the crime.” Carson stepped toward the door.

But Tallon did not move.

“Curiously, Mr. Tallon doesn’t seem to want your company, Benny,” said McKeon.

“And then, his rifle and he are coming to Dublin with us. For openers we’d like to discuss why he tried to kill you and fired at me. One bullet that passed through the shattered windscreen struck the cushion of a seat and is still intact. Also, there’s the matter of the condoms.

“Know what, Tallon? I’ll bet anything what I said earlier is right—you didn’t fire the shot that killed Ellen Finn, and you had no part either in Burke’s death or Quintan Finn’s supposed suicide.

“All you did was try to help out your wife, and Carson here took the ball from you and ran with it. Murdering Ellen and Quintan Finn was his idea from square one, and he carried out both murders.

“The condoms, the underwear—all his,” McKeon added. “As only an accessory, who willingly cooperates with the police, there might still be a few good years left for fishing on the river.”

“Don’t listen to them, Tim. Come with me,” Carson insisted. “We’ll ring up that solicitor of ours. They’re reaching. They can’t pull us in for a packet of condoms and a spent bullet.”

Carson now had a hand on the doorknob, and the three other men watched as Tallon’s eyes searched the carpet on the floor, trying to decide.

Finally, his head came up with his jaw squared. “Right you are, Benny. Imagine these gobshites trying to drive a wedge between me and the wife, and now me and you. There’s nothing they won’t do.

“McGarr—as I observed the other day—you were a bastard then, and you’re a bastard now. I’m done with you. That’s the end of our friendship.”

“Good lad,” Carson cheered, opening the door.

In it stood Sylvie Zeebruge with arms raised and something in her hands. A gun.

“No!” McGarr roared, reaching for his weapon.

But the first shot struck Tallon, like a punch, driving him back into the room, and a second and a third slammed him down into the carpet.

And as she swung the gun at Carson, McGarr and McKeon fired simultaneously again and again, virtually pinning the woman to the wall of the hallway behind her. As she slumped down, the gun fell from her hands.

Quickly, McGarr was by her side, while McKeon tended to Tallon. But if she wasn’t already dead, she would be, McGarr could see. She would not survive the many wounds clustered on her chest.

“Ah, Christ,” said McKeon, kneeling over Tallon. “Right between the eyes.”

Carson’s plain black brogues—prison issue, McGarr decided, and much like the shoes of Guards and priests—now appeared where McGarr was squatting beside Sylvie Zeebruge.

“Looks like check and mate to me, Chief Superintendent, and I hope you’re a good loser. I also commend you for your marksmanship. They train you well. In that.”

Carson turned toward the stairs. “You know where to find me. I promise I won’t go anywhere. And you can ask me any class of thing here, down in the bar, in Dublin, if you like. Polygraph. Affidavits. I’m always available. I’ll answer your call.”

McGarr rose from Sylvie Zeebruge’s corpse and followed Carson toward the stairs. “It’s not my call you’ll be answering. I’m washing my hands of you.”

Stopping at the top of the stairs, Carson turned to him.

Cell phone in hand, McGarr punched in his Dublin office. “Put me through to a Dermot Finn, who has a Leixleap phone number.”

“My brother-in-law? You wouldn’t. I’ll go to the barracks and demand protection.” For the first time, Carson looked worried; his face was drawn, his eyes narrowed.

“On second thought, while you’re looking for Finn’s number get me Declan Riley at the Leixleap barracks.”

“I’ll go to your Commissioner.”

McGarr covered the speaker of the phone, “Who’ll be certain to listen to you, a convicted cop killer twice over. Count on me to tell him.”

“But I have the child to take care of. Think of her.”

“She has her father.”

“Who’ll be in jail.”

It was McGarr’s turn to smile. “Perhaps. But, as I remember, Manus never fired a weapon, and the most I’ll see him charged with is the destruction of public property. Given the promise of restitution and a good word from me, he might not have to do any time whatsoever.