The Death of Love (3 page)

“Where did this happen?”

“Parknasilla.”

“The hotel?”

“In Sneem in Kerry.”

“Wasn’t that where Power lived?”

“Well—born and raised. Since his divorce I don’t think he maintained a house there. Or anywhere else that I know of.”

McGarr blinked. He had read that Power preferred hotel living, but it was rather late in the season for Parknasilla, which was a resort that Noreen’s parents frequented. McGarr could remember them saying that it closed at the end of September.

“Family was grown and gone. And you know Paddy—”

McGarr wished he had.

“Billionaire monk,” Farrell concluded sourly.

He meant that Power had lived simply, preferring to devote his time and money to the less fortunate. AIDS and drug-addicted babies, the homeless, alcoholics, the crippled and blind, had benefited from Power’s largess, as had hospitals, libraries, schools, colleges, and universities. Quite a part from his prestige at being a self-made man, Power had enjoyed enormous moral authority, which in Ireland could easily have turned into political clout.

“The man to see down there is Shane Frost. He was Paddy’s partner in Eire Bank, and they go way back. Both were born there in Sneem and came to Dublin together. You know, years ago.”

Along with Mossie Gladden, McGarr thought. Three men from one village who had gone on to become national and—in Power’s case—international figures.

“Be sure to look him up first thing.”

If he saw him, McGarr thought. If not, all the better. He did not need instruction from a banker on how to conduct the investigation of a death. “What was Power doing at Parknasilla at this time of year?”

“Some sort of conference, I believe.”

“About what?”

“No idea.”

“Who are the other guests?”

“Nor that either.”

Too fast. Farrell knew, but he wasn’t telling. Why?

“What about the”—McGarr rejected the word “crime”—“scene? Has it been…?”

“I understand he’s just as he was found. The Guards there are waiting for you. Nobody has left the hotel. Nobody else knows.”

“And the press?” It would be the biggest story of the year,
especially
if Power had been murdered.

“None yet. The officer in command, one—”

McGarr heard a paper rattle.

“—Superintendent Butler of the Kenmare Barracks has secured the area and cut off communications with the outside. The point is to minimize all the…speculation before it can get out of hand, which is why I’m calling.”

And now for
the
question: “Why you and not my office?”

“
McGarr
,” Farrell said in a tone of petulant exasperation. “Let’s just say a ‘source,’ and leave it at that. I’m just trying to prepare you for what might possibly be a major investigation. As far as we’re concerned, this conversation never took place. Your office is probably trying to get on to you as we speak.

“Be sure to check in with me the moment you get there. I want to be kept informed, hour by hour if necessary.”

Then why not take over the investigation yourself, McGarr was about to suggest when Farrell hung up. McGarr had no sooner placed the receiver in its yoke than the phone began ringing again. It was his office with nothing new to add.

Noreen came next.

“Ah, no—not Paddy Power?” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. She sat at the kitchen table, Madeleine in her lap. After a while she went on, “He was so special. He radiated so much…hope, which, Lord knows, we need now.”

McGarr supposed she meant the continuing economic
slump. With unemployment over 20 percent, young people—especially graduates from Ireland’s several, fine universities—had to emigrate to find work. Over thirty thousand had left in the last year.

“But
murdered?
”

McGarr told her what Farrell had said, then went upstairs to dress. When he got back down to the door, she was in the sitting room with both a radio and the television on. “Nothing yet.”

At least that was something.

She shook her head. “You know, Paddy Power was a crony of my father’s.”

McGarr stopped in the process of patting his pockets, making sure he had everything necessary for a day or two. He had also packed a small bag.

“They met years ago, way back when Paddy was in government, before Eire Bank and New York and all his success. But they kept in touch. I can remember later, when I was in university, Paddy spending a Christmas with us, and he was so
alive
and irrepressible and brilliant. He had”—she thought for a moment—“wit without malice, obviously a keen intelligence, and he loved the small, fine details that make life interesting. You know, the sort of person you could point to with pride and say, Now
he
’s Irish.”

McGarr leaned against the jamb. He had no idea that her parents had been close to Power, but then, with a large town house in Fitzwilliam Square and a horse farm in the country, her parents as much as inhabited another world—one of money, privilege, and leisure.

“There was some talk of Paddy having problems with his marriage, and, of course, he had no place to stay in Dublin but some hotel. So out of the blue he just rang Daddy up, and there he was—one of the world’s richest and most successful men—with us for Christmas. And with no limousine or servants or profusion of gifts. Just Paddy stepping out of a cab with a single bag and the rumpled suit he had flown in with. It was the first time I heard that odd definition of a snob”—she turned to McGarr, and he saw that her face was streaming with tears—“you
know, a person who is at home everywhere, but has no home of his own.

“One night when we had some people in, he regaled us with one delightful story after another about New York and London. He was able to appropriate dialects flawlessly, and he included all the quirks and curiosities of the Americans and Brits, whom my parents’ circle of friends look down upon as only partially civilized yahoos on the one hand and”—she hunched her shoulders—“uncivilizable, inhuman elitists on the other.

“It’s jealousy, I know—” Noreen paused to blow her nose.

That those two peoples, whose shortcomings were reported daily in the Irish press, perpetually seemed to enjoy a disproportionate share of the world’s goods and resources, McGarr concluded.

“But what good is it being Irish, if you can’t make fun of the little you allow yourself to know of the rest of the world.”

McGarr almost smiled; it had been his thought exactly. Noreen and he were like two halves of the same brain.

“When somebody asked Paddy where he planned to live when he ‘grew up,’ he said Ireland, of course—‘Who else would have me?’ He also said that he planned to go into ‘public service,’ were his words. And now this…
before
he even got going.” Again she stanched her tears. “I wonder, is it the sort of thing a country ever gets over?”

The death of a potential leader? McGarr didn’t know if the question was rhetorical or if he should try to frame an answer. Instead he glanced at his watch.

“I’m thinking of Larkin and Collins here, or King and the Kennedys in America.”

It was his turn to hunch his shoulders. Hadn’t America survived its assassinations? And who was saying Power’s death was that, though it was what some people would think.

“Peter”—she waited until his eyes met hers—“one way or the other, there’ll be a hell of a stink when this gets out. Just watch yourself, please. Farrell, O’Duffy, and that crowd are a slippery lot, and will sacrifice anybody who gets in their way.”

“Speaking of money—do you have any? After the weekend, I’m out.”

“Try my purse, but I think you’ll have to stop at the bank. I spent my readies on the pram.”

The Irish were among the most heavily taxed people in the world, and with their combined income currently taxed at 70 percent, the McGarrs were always short of cash. He found two crumpled punt notes and a handful of change, which made seven-odd quid for the pocket of a senior civil servant. Not much in case of an emergency. But at least down in Parknasilla he’d be on the government’s tab and would get back some pittance of the enormity that was relieved form his pay packet every month.

There was no time for a kiss. “Toodle-oo,” he said.

“Toodle-ah.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Noreen reach down and draw Maddie to her, saying, “Darlin’ girl, I love you so much. I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you.”

Nor did McGarr. To either or both of them.

SMALL, WIDE, AND quick, like himself, McGarr’s private car was a forest-green Mini-Cooper. Now nearly thirty years old, it was a much-pampered antique that clung tenaciously to any surface but was at its best dodging through Dublin traffic and on the narrow back roads of Ireland. On straightaways, like the N-7 down which McGarr now plunged on a southwest slant to Kerry, it also cruised handily, if not comfortably; and except while jinking through major Midlands cities like Naas, Portlaoighise, Nenagh, and Limerick, McGarr kept the needle above 100 mph.

Three-and-a-half hours later, he arrived at Parknasilla, which means “Field of Willows” in Irish and enjoys the distinction of being one of the few houses in Ireland to appear on maps. McGarr had never seen the resort and was surprised when an avenue of trees, leading from stone gates to the hotel, parted suddenly and presented a dramatic view of the Kenmare River, a long, deep marine bay dotted here and there with small, uninhabited islands. Caught in shafts of brilliant afternoon sunlight, they looked wind-racked and besieged in a brimming turquoise sea. Farther still lay the dark, perilous Atlantic, brooding after some ocean storm.

McGarr drifted through a car park filled mostly with automobiles that bore the logos of Shannon Airport rental agencies. Many of the Irish cars were large and pricey—
Mercs, Jags, and BMWs—which caused McGarr to think of the conference that Power had been attending and of which Farrell had claimed no knowledge. Had he seen something about it in the papers? No again, which was curious.

Since Power’s return to Ireland three or so years earlier, the most sensational of the Dublin newspapers had been featuring stories about the “eccentric humanitarian billionaire,” was the phrase he remembered—with headlines like,
POWER WATCH
, when Power was photographed raising binoculars to his eyes at a race meeting.
POWER SURGE
showed the man striding up the rocky face of a mountain. McGarr would have thought
POWER MEETING
a natural, especially in a setting, like Parknasilla, that was more usual to billionaires. But then he was not—thank Saint Mark, patron saint of scribblers and other idlers—a journalist.

Stepping out of the Cooper, McGarr had to snatch at the brim of his fedora. The tempest was enough to stagger him, and the small car rocked in its blast. Overhead as out of a cannon, a flock of teal—driven on the wind—shot in a complex weave of body and wing that looked suicidal. In a flash of white, bottle green, and dove gray, the formation bolted quickly toward a wall of dense trees where the birds separated suddenly and disappeared.

Pivoting, McGarr gathered his mac around his waist and propelled himself at the main building of the resort, which was both more and less than he had expected. Doubtless because of his in-laws’ stories, he had thought the three-story Victorian structure castlelike and immense; instead he found it a graceful gray stone building with large, airy windows and gabled roofs.

A porter in white tie and tails met McGarr at the door and conveyed him to the office of the manager, one Jim Feeney. “Ah, yes. We were expecting you. You’ve had several calls.” Tall, well tailored, and youthful in appearance, Feeney handed McGarr two phone memos, both instructing him to ring up the callers immediately. One was from Farrell, the other from Farrell’s boss, Minister for Justice Harney, “ASAP.” When McGarr slipped both in a pocket, Feeney conducted him to the third floor where Garda Superintendent Butler was waiting.

Paddy Power’s face was the color of an old bruise. The jaw was dropped open, and the eyes were bulging. Lying on his back on the carpet with his arms thrown over his head, he looked as if he had died while issuing a final commentary upon life.

His smile was ghastly, like a kind of macabre guffaw, and the split in the skin on his forehead had added blacker streaks of bloody war paint that only elaborated the impression of wild, riotous, savage laughter. A single white card was clasped in a hand like a winning tote ticket at a race meeting. It was as though Power were saying, I know something you don’t. This
is
the prize. There is none other.

McGarr wrenched his eyes away. It was a smile he would not soon forget. Also on the floor on the side of the bed closest to the toilet was a brown bottle from which small yellow pills had spilled.

McGarr turned his head and looked back into the sitting room at the large, paneled door that had been removed from its hinges with such care that the night latch was still snugged in its clasp. The door itself was leaning against the molding of the jamb.

McGarr glanced at Feeney, wishing him to explain. At six-three or -four, the young manager towered over McGarr. Bending slightly at the waist, he advised in a low voice, “Nothing has been disturbed. It’s a heavy door, quality construction. The night latch had been thrown, and we found it quicker and easier to slip the pins and pull the door away.

“Mr. Power had asked for a wake-up call at six this morning. He’s usually…he
was
usually an early riser whenever he stayed with us, which was at least twice a year when he came to visit the graves of his mother and father. And, of course, today his conference was to begin.”

“Conference?” McGarr asked.

“Yes, and
has
begun, might I add, according to instructions from Minister for Finance Quinn in Dublin. We’ve made the excuse that Mr. Power is indisposed. So far, I believe, his death is not general knowledge.”

McGarr blinked. So, to Commissioner Farrell and Min
ister for Justice Harney he now added Minister for Finance Quinn, who had been in touch with Parknasilla. Quinn was even now giving the orders about Power’s conference.

Feeney went on, “As I was saying, I arrived at the door just around seven. I too knocked insistently. Receiving no answer, I ordered the carpenter to remove the door. It was plain the poor man was already dead, but I phoned the doctor all the same. And, of course, a priest.” He paused for a moment before continuing.

“Dr. Gladden speculated that Mr. Power had died some time before, most probably in the early evening, and after examining the body and…the premises”—Feeney’s eyes moved toward the medical cabinet that could be seen through the doorway to the toilet—“he insisted I phone the Civic Guards.”

“And a damn fool thing to do,” said a voice behind them.

The men in the room turned to find a fourth man, who was as tall as Feeney but older, standing immediately in back of them, his hands clasped behind his back. He had a long, handsome face and gray hair that was thin on top but swept to a rich cascade of silver curls. He was wearing a black vicuña overcoat and a light-gray business suit set off by a pearl-gray silk tie.

His shoes were gray as well—capped bluchers with blond laminated heels—all polished to a mirror sheen. A lubricious ruff of silk scarf, which matched the tie, traced the line of his lapels. The man needed only a black bowler and rolled umbrella to complete the archetype, thought McGarr, and a different venue. In all he seemed better suited to the confines of financial Dublin than to the chambers of a quiet hotel on the coast of Kerry.

“I’m Shane Frost.”

McGarr had expected so. He was the man Commissioner Farrell had instructed McGarr to look up. First thing. Frost had been Power’s partner in Eire Bank, and whereas that institution had thrived under Power’s hand, under Frost’s it was now petitioning the government for assistance in meeting its obligations. Or so the papers had been saying for the last several months.

“You McGarr?”

“Sorry,” Feeney began too say. “I assumed you knew each other. Chief Superintendent McGarr, this is—”

But Frost spoke over the hotel manager. “Weren’t you supposed to report to me?”

McGarr surveyed the bunched furrows on Frost’s forehead, the raised eyebrow, his clear blue and accusatory eyes, the muscle that was twitching on the side of his cheek. He wondered if a commanding presence, so to speak, was usual to Frost, or had some other concern—perhaps sorrow at the death of an old friend and colleague—precipitated his imperious mien. As Farrell had said, Frost was also from this part of Kerry, and had been with Power “all the way.”

“Before you listen to this gombeen-man and his self-serving prattle,” boomed another voice from the doorway “would you hear me, who was Paddy’s doctor and, as it turns out, only real friend?”

McGarr turned to the man who now entered the bedroom and was struck by the contrast. Like Frost, Dr. Maurice “Call Me Mossie” Gladden was a tall man, but he was wide and stooped with bandy legs that gave him a busy, shuffling gait like a boxer angling for a kill: as now in moving toward the toilet, where McGarr could see a shattered mirror on the front of a medical cabinet above the sink.

Gladden gestured with a large hand for McGarr to follow, then turned to him an oddly configured face and clear hazel eyes that seemed to see best in sidelong glance. His skin was wind-scoured and red. It only added to the impression of combativeness that Gladden had developed over his nearly three decades in public office. Nor had his clothes been selected with an eye to please.

Gladden was wearing a farmer’s heavy black coat with leather patches on the shoulders and an old belt cinched about the waist. His trousers were made of some coarse green material and had been stuffed into a pair of rolled-down Wellies. In his public career Gladden had played the wide-eyed-but-crafty Kerry gorsoon, even to the extent of larding his speech with country expressions given out in a thick Kerry brogue.

But his hand, which McGarr now took, had felt like flint, and he guessed that Gladden had spent the interven
ing years practicing the occupation for which he was dressed. Not doctoring, though the mantle was not fully off. McGarr tried to recollect what he knew of the man.

Although returned as T.D. (tachta Dail, a member of the Irish parliament) in election after election from a constituency in the South Kerry mountains, Gladden had resigned, when Sean Dermot O’Duffy was named taosieach (leader of the majority party) for a fourth time. In a press conference he condemned O’Duffy for confounding the economic potential of the country and running the Irish people into the “workhouses of foreign interests for his own personal gain.” When asked if he had proof, Gladden had said not yet, but he would get it.

From what McGarr knew about the laws of libel, O’Duffy might have brought Gladden to court. Instead he only smiled and said, “Mossie Gladden is his own self entirely. He has served this country vociferously and in one particular instance with profound charity. He remains living proof that, although sometimes misguided, we Irish are a democratic and indeed a tolerant people.” Of course O’Duffy was asked when the instance had been. “His final utterance, which we can only hope was sincere. His resignation.”

It was a squelch that was repeated in all the media, in pubs, trains, buses, cars, and kitchens the country over, and proved effective. Three years had now elapsed, and McGarr could not remember another mention of or from the contentious Gladden, who at one time had been the darling of the more sensational radio-talk and late-night television shows.

“Look you now at this bottle here.” Gladden pointed to the brown pill bottle on the floor. “And these other ones, here in the cabinet. Tell me, d’ye know their purpose?”

McGarr glanced down at the bottle on the floor, the label of which said:

M.J.P. Frost, Chemist
Sneem, Co. Kerry

From:
Dr. Maurice T. Gladden
For:
Mr. Padraic B. Power
Rx:
Digitoxin: 1.0 mg. Max. dose 2 tablets

The pills were sprayed, like yellow dots, over the blood-red carpet.

Carefully McGarr stepped into the toilet, trying to avoid the shattered glass. Slivers crunched under his feet. The medicine cabinet, which was open, had a larger bottle on its top shelf that was also from M.J.P. Frost, Chemist. The label said it was quinidine in 0.2 gm units to be taken T.I.D., which—McGarr remembered from a bout of flu he once had—meant three times a day.

Said Gladden, “I don’t actively solicit patients anymore, I only deal with them I had and them what come to me in need. Like Paddy, when he was here. Over in London he saw a pricey Mayfair cardiologist who never spoke him a word different from mine. I was his family doctor and good friend.” His hazel eyes snapped to the door where Frost was standing. “The best, as it turns out.”

Gladden waited, but Frost said nothing, and he continued, “Paddy had Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. It’s not a disease but something Paddy inherited. A kind of short circuit in the heart. The nerve signal is too quick and arrives early in one ventricle but on time in the other. The patient shows no real symptoms, unless he notices a”—Gladden waved his large, callused hand before his chest—“fluttery feeling. It can lead to atrial fibrillation, which is not a life-threatening condition unless the other ventricle becomes involved, and here did. I’d stake my farm on it.”

McGarr canted his head to signal that he wished a further explanation of the medical terms.

Said Frost from behind them, “A fibrillation is a sudden acceleration of the heart. If it beats fast enough, it can seize.”

McGarr kept his eyes on Gladden, who said, “Why t’ank you,
Chairman
Frost. Or is it
Dr
. Frost? For a jumped-up banker, costume and all, you’re wonderful acquainted with cardiac arrythmias.”

“I was with Paddy’s. He was my friend too.”

“Which remains only to be disproven,” Gladden said, with a knowing glance at McGarr. When sitting in the Dail, Gladden had vanquished many a skilled parliamentarian with his quick and acerbic country wit. “And tell us
then,
Dr
. Frost who knows so much, what are the causes of a ventricular fibrillation?”

McGarr turned to Frost.

“Well, since you ask—they can be several. Some coronary occlusion, or an overdosage of medication.”

“Like digitalis?”

Frost nodded and pointed toward the medicine cabinet. “Or quinidine. There’s also procainamide, potassium chloride, barium chloride, or a combination of those substances.”