The Death of an Irish Sinner (6 page)

BUT PARMALEE
was gone by ten the next morning when McGarr got down to the kitchen.

Seated at the long table were Bernie McKeon, Hugh Ward, and Ruth Bresnahan, Murder Squad staffers, who were being served a killer Irish breakfast, McGarr could see as he walked in: crisped rashers, sausages of several kinds, a mound of eggs scrambled with cream and cheese, grilled tomatoes, chips, and buttered toast.

None of which McGarr could have. His cholesterol was sky-high, a Garda physician and friend had told him, after a mandatory testing of everybody in the unit. Well into the two hundreds. “Add to that, Chief Superintendent, you don’t seem to be able to do anything about your smoking, so something has to go.

“May I suggest fatty foods? I could put you on a strict diet. You’d lose weight, feel better, be more ac
tive. How much younger is Noreen than you? A fair few years, I’d say. I’d hazard she’d like you around as long as possible.” Worse news was—a copy of the physician’s report had been sent to the house.

Some friend.

The diet proved to be simple in the extreme; anything and everything that tasted at all good was verboten. “Not to worry,” the cruel doctor had assured McGarr confidently. “You’ll get used to the regimen. Once you start losing a few pounds and feeling better, you’ll turn up your nose at all those bloating things that you formerly hungered for.”

It was now day eleven, and McGarr’s nose was pointing at the platter of eggs. Add to that, he had never actually felt unhealthy, he decided, raising a hand in greeting to the others, as he advanced on the table. It had been the physician who had predicted he would possibly feel bad sometime in the future.

“We’re talking about the big one here, Peter,” the man had carried on. “Myocardial infarction. A heart attack. Bang, and you’re dead. Or some major surgery followed by an equally major change in how you conduct your life. Perhaps you might have to change your occupation. Could you handle that?”

At the moment, McGarr believed he could handle a smallish dab of everything on the table.

But before he could even sit down, a bowl of stirabout was placed before his chair, along with a cup of black coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a small heap of pills—vitamins mostly, but also one to lower his blood pressure and another to combat the cholesterol.

“You should keep in mind,” the preachy doctor had continued, “that growing old successfully requires abandoning unhealthful practices one by one.”

Until oatmeal mush was all that was left, McGarr decided, looking down into the gluey mass.

“In addition to tobacco and rich foods, I also mean alcohol,” the man had ranted on, scanning the questionnaire that McGarr had foolishly filled out truthfully. “Do you really drink this much every day? What hour do you begin?”

Reaching for the butter, his eyes shied toward the pantry where the liquor was kept.

“Allow me to remove that from your sight,” Noreen said, her hand whisking the butter dish off the table.

Not in the best of moods before breakfast under normal circumstances, McGarr only glared at her. Earlier, when looking in the mirror to shave, he had been shocked at how swollen his face was, and he could scarcely tie his shoes, his left wrist was so sore.

“Shall I begin?” McKeon asked, shaking out a sheaf of papers. “Chief—that report that you asked for on Opus Dei is there by the side of your plate.”

A rotund middle-aged man with a thick shock of once-blond hair but dark eyes, McKeon pushed aside a plate that had only recently contained not a little bit of everything, McGarr deduced from the remains.

McGarr cleared his throat. “Tell you what. I’m not in the greatest form this morning, and I’d like what Bernie had,” he said in a small voice, feeling very much like a character out of Dickens.

“Now, now—that’ll pass once you get something in
your stomach,” Noreen said in a motherly tone of voice. “You know what the doctor recommended, and you agreed to.”

“Ah, let the poor man have what he wants,” her mother, Nuala, put in. “You can see for yourself, he had a hard go of it last night. I hope you gave as good as you got, lad. Let me freshen that cup for you now.”

“And me,” said McKeon. “You shouldn’t use me as a model, Chief. Didn’t the sawbones say I had the cholestorol level of a pregnant woman? You saw the numbers yourself.”

“Maybe that should tell you something,” Bresnahan observed, reaching for the teapot. “Have you been by a mirror lately?”

“If he starts wearing a nursing bra,” Ward muttered,

“I’m filing a grievance.”

“I can et anything I wish,” McKeon continued.

“Including the occasional platter of crow.” Again it was Bresnahan, banter being the usual tone of morning meetings. She was a tall, statuesque redhead who, as a recent mother, was herself on a slimming diet.

“Whereas some of us just don’t have the numbers. Didn’t the doctor explain it all to me in a phrase?” McKeon pushed the half glasses down his nose and paused dramatically. “Genetic superiority.”

“Bad doctor, bad science,” said Ward, reaching for the platter of sausages. Like Noreen, Ward was a trim person who would never be heavy. A former amateur boxer, he still spent a few hours in the gym every second day, working the bags, lifting weights, and sparring a few rounds with younger fighters. His dark eyes
avoided McGarr’s as he forked a few sausages off the platter.

Noreen now cut a thin slice of butter and dropped it into the oatmeal. “It’ll taste almost the same, trust me.”

McGarr’s eyes flickered up to hers, which were turquoise in color and bright. She had slept well.

Meanwhile, he could hear her mother in the pantry, where she had gone with his cup. There was a squeak, as of a cork being twisted from the neck of a bottle, and then a few good glugs as his coffee was being freshened.

McGarr relaxed. At least that part of his day was proceeding according to form; he’d not missed an eye-opener in decades. “Where’s Fitz?” he asked, not having seen his father-in-law.

“Down in the village,” Nuala said, placing the brimming cup before him. “He thought he’d put an ear to the ground, given what happened. Maybe the locals will loosen up for him what they wouldn’t say to the police.

“There, now—you drink that while it’s hot and good.”

“Mammy—you’re just abetting him,” Noreen complained.

“What? Nothing of the kind. You’ve read the reports that say a little touch now and then is spot on for the ticker. You could do with a drop yourself.”

“And Maddie—where’s Maddie?”

“Schoolwork. I thought it might be uncomfortable for her to hear whatever details Bernie’s got for us this morning.”

McGarr raised the blessed drop to his lips and allowed the hot, peat-smoky liquid to course down his gullet. There now. That was better. “Bernie?” he asked, reaching for his spoon.

“Not all the news is good,” McKeon began. “In fact, two items are altogether troubling. First is, our chief here might consider treating himself to the odd steak or two of an evening, for strength if not for taste.

“Geraldine Breen—the woman who put him in the condition we see him in this morning and whom he put in hospital—she absconded last night, replacing herself with the Guard who was securing her room. And a big fella, by all accounts.

“It’s thought his back might be broken. The nurses assumed we’d removed the Guard, and seeing a form in the bed, they didn’t realize she was gone until a few hours ago.

“We’ve issued an ‘all points,’ of course. But no trace of her yet.

“As for the second revelation—preliminary findings indicate Mary-Jo Stanton was murdered around four in the afternoon. That coincides exactly with the event that was taped on the security monitor, the one that views the section of garden where her corpse was found by the priest, Father Fred”—McKeon turned to another page.

“Duggan,” Ward put in.

Mary-Jo Stanton’s “keeper,” if what Dery Parmalee said about Opus Dei and Barbastro was factual, McGarr thought.

“However—and this is the big however—Mary-Jo
Stanton was not killed by the device that was found around her neck. At least not directly, since the wounds and pattern of bleeding indicate that the punctures from the barbs occurred before her death.” McKeon glanced up over his half glasses. “The wounds from the—I’m going to call it—‘silly-sea-oh.’”

“Thee-LEE-thee-oh,” corrected Ward, who spoke Castilian rather well.

“Exactly. But that device was not the cause of death, it says here. What killed her was a myocardial infarction.”

“A heart attack?” Bresnahan asked.

“Then she died of natural causes?” Noreen asked, taking a seat at the table.

“Natural enough, if you dismiss the—”

“Cilicio,”
Ward supplied.

“Which could have brought on her death,” Bresnahan mused.

“Well, certainly Mary-Jo didn’t wrap the blessed thing around her own neck and tighten it until it drew blood.” Noreen reached for the platter of eggs.

“The postmortem is by no means complete, of course. But perhaps we should view it like that, until we receive the final report.” McKeon glanced over at McGarr, who nodded.

“Moving on to the guests and residents of Barbastro…” McKeon glanced up from his notes.

“What is it about the sound of that name that gives me the willies?”

“That’s easy,” Bresnahan put in, now doodling on her notepad. “You find the
bar
part enticing, given
your proclivities. But one letter further, it’s ouch. Then there’s the
a, s
part that’s pronounced ‘ass,’ which, of course, never applies to you, Bernie.”

“Yet,” Ward muttered. “Give him time.”

“
Bast,
of course, is half of
bastard
. But again, that’s not you. And finally there’s the
astro,
which is five-eighths of
castrato.
Little wonder you’re concerned about your willy.”

“Barbastro, I’ll have you know, is the small city in Aragon where José Maria Escrivá—the beatified priest who founded the Opus Dei order—was born,” said McKeon, shaking out his notes. “Father Fred Duggan told me that. He was and is a resident in the house, along with Geraldine Breen, who is a member of the sect—”

“Order,” Bresnahan corrected. “In a Catholic context,
sect
implies heresy, and from what I know, Opus Dei is more than simply mainstream. They’re at the very center of the Church, since they control the money.”

Spooning up some stirabout, McGarr took note of Bresnahan’s knowledge of the—

“Order,” McKeon repeated. “Father Juan Carlos Sclavi, who has also been resident in Barbastro for the last month and was there yesterday afternoon, is a priest of same. Little English, we were told by Duggan, less it seemed when I spoke to him and, later, Hughie in his native lingo.”

“Wouldn’t say anything without Duggan in the room,” Ward added. “Kept looking at him for a wink or a nod, whenever I asked the question.”

“As well,” McKeon continued, “one Delia Manahan spent the day and the night at Barbastro. She too claims an affiliation with the Opus Dei order, although she told us she lives and owns her own house on Killiney Bay.”

Another monied person, thought McGarr; property values on Killiney Bay had skyrocketed in recent years. Many of the houses were large, the view of the bay and Bray Head to the south were magnificent, and the commute into Dublin by high-speed train was quick.

“Duggan claims to have been away from the property at the time—around four in the afternoon—when the surveillance camera was obscured, which the pathologist estimates was the time of Mary-Jo Stanton’s death.

“Finally, we have the gardener, the aptly named Frank Mudd, who on first blush appears to be a three-monkeys kind of guy.”

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil?” Noreen asked.

“No. If you groom me, I’ll groom you. If not, I’ll go to the third monkey, who’ll pay for the pleasure.”

“I don’t get it.” Noreen reached for McGarr’s coffee cup.

Said Bresnahan, “He wants to know what’s in it for him.”

“‘Without Miss Stanton, I’ll be put out of here by the priests, who’ll bring in one of their own,’” Ward put in. “‘It’s time for me to start thinking of meself.’”

“Could be he’s afraid of something.” Noreen sipped from the cup.

“Us, maybe.”

“How can you?” she asked McGarr, her hand rising to her throat. And yet the cup remained in her hand.

“Otherwise, the videotapes that we watched?”

“Interminably,” said Ward.

“They show nobody else on or about the property at the time the ‘silly-sea-oh’ was clamped down on the poor old crone’s neck, maybe or maybe not causing her death.”

“But at least we can assume she was attacked by somebody she knew and did not fear,” Noreen mused, obviously having perused the reports that now sat in the middle of the table. “There’s the tape of her turning around to see somebody approaching her, then somebody or bodies placed something over the surveillance camera, and when that thing was withdrawn, there she was, dead, with the device wrapped around her throat.”

“God bless us and save us from all harm,” Nuala whispered, turning away to the sink with tears in her eyes. “To think that such a thing could happen to an elderly lady—and very much the lady—tilling the soil in her garden.”

“Any other surveillance cameras malfunctioning?” McGarr asked, finishing the porridge and reaching for the cup, which Noreen handed him.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“One along the wall that borders the main road into the village. Another in the kitchen.”

“Focused on what?”

McKeon glanced at Ward.

“What had been the servants’ staircase, when there
were servants. It leads up to the quarters of the victim on the third floor.”

And it was the staircase down which whoever ransacked the victim’s apartment could have fled, thought McGarr.

“But there was a servant—the mannish woman, Geraldine Breen,” Nuala managed. “She waited hand and foot on Mary-Jo, day and night now for…at least for a decade that I can remember. There was even talk that the two might be a, you know, couple.”

“Although there was talk like that of Mary-Jo and Father Fred.”