(Monty)
The lawyer who most frequently appeared on behalf of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was Barry Sheehan. I knew Barry quite well as a fellow member of the criminal defence bar. I called him in the middle of the week and asked if we could get together for a chat. He couldn’t get free of work, so we talked about the weekend. When I mentioned that my blues band, Functus, had a gig that Saturday afternoon at Gus’s Pub, Barry said he’d come by and listen and have a beer, then we could talk.
Gus’s Pub is located at the corner of North and Agricola streets. There are no frills at Gus’s, and that’s why people like it. It has square tables, tavern chairs, beer ads, and a large, loyal crowd of regulars. My band and I wailed our way through some blues standards by Muddy Waters and T-Bone Walker, and I wound up with a harp solo on “Trouble No More.” We took a break after that, and I joined Barry Sheehan at his table just inside the door.
Barry was big and muscular, and had the striking colouring that graced many people of Irish descent: round blue eyes and black wavy hair. We asked about each other’s families and exchanged a bit of lawyerly chitchat, then I got to the point.
“Have to pick your brain about your best-known clients, Barry. Guys who tend to travel in packs, wearing very distinctive clothing.”
“The Knights of Columbus?”
“Um, no.”
“What do you want to know? You’re not representing a co-accused in something I haven’t heard about yet, I hope.”
“No, nothing like that. And nothing that wouldn’t be on the record. It’s just that I’m not familiar with the record. But it’s got to stay between you and me.”
“Okay.”
I had to be careful here. In other words, I had to be dishonest. “My client’s not opening up to me and I’m worried about him.”
“Your client being . . .”
“Beau Delaney.”
“I see.”
“There’s been some suggestion that he may have got himself in trouble with them, or made himself unpopular somehow.”
“Oh?”
“Did he ever represent them, do you know?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I told you. He’s not telling me everything.”
“To my recollection he never did much work for them. I think he handled a couple of isolated cases in years past. But nothing regular, or recent. As for pissing them off, I have no idea. I never heard of any animosity, but then I wouldn’t necessarily be in the loop. What’s going on? Does he think someone’s after him?”
“Possibly.”
“Or someone’s out to smear him? Accuse him of things he didn’t do, perhaps?”
“Could be,” I equivocated. I tried another approach. “What’s been happening with the club lately?”
“Well, we had that extortion trial in the fall. I got the charges thrown out.”
“Oh, I remember. Nicely done!”
“Yeah, the case collapsed once I got the wiretap evidence excluded. And there was that murder last year in Truro. The guy was shot with a handgun. The police have their eye on one of the Hells Angels for that, apparently, but they haven’t laid charges yet. No hurry, I guess. The guy got arrested a couple of weeks after that for another incident; he’s doing time in Dorchester for aggravated assault. They gave him six years for it. He went to another lawyer, so he has only himself to blame!”
“Oh yeah, I remember hearing something about the killing in Truro. The vic was known to police, as they say.”
“That’s right. He was no choirboy.”
“How come the biker got other counsel for the assault trial?”
“He got it into his head that hiring a local boy to represent him might make him look better in front of a hometown jury. Rather than bringing the big bad bikers’ lawyer in from Halifax. Turns out it wasn’t such a good idea. Should have called Uncle Barry.”
“Do you think you could have got him off?”
“Couldn’t have done any worse! At the very least, I could have pleaded it down. Anyway, he’s the guy the Mounties think did that shooting in Truro.”
“Right. Anything else going on?”
“There was the arson case, of course. Their old clubhouse burned down, with a guy passed out inside. The police tried to say they did it themselves. They’re not that stupid. Someone with a grudge, and a lot of balls, did that. The case is still in the unsolved pile. I figure if the guy is identified, he’ll turn himself in to the police. Better off in jail than out for some folks. Aside from those incidents, I don’t recall anything else.”
(Normie)
Monday was the day we were going to surprise Father Burke. He’s not always with us at Four-Four Time, so on the days when he was out, we had been teaching the little kids a song he really likes, the Sanctus in the green hymn book. It’s Gregorian chant. That means it’s ancient. Richard Robertson was going to conduct the music. If you knew Richard, you’d never believe he could act like a choir director. But anyway he snuck up to the grown-ups’ choir school, the schola cantorum, then came back.
“Burke’s wrapping things up in there,” he said, sounding almost like a grown-up himself. “He’ll probably be down in a minute. So finish gobbling your snacks and get ready.” We heard footsteps. “Here he comes!”
Some of the kids tried to stuff whole muffins and doughnuts in their mouths before grabbing their music. But anyway, I helped Richard get them organized in rows with their music. And when Father came in, Richard lifted his arm in the air, and we started: “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.” It didn’t sound very good. How can you sing with your throat clogged with food? A big wad of crumbs spewed out of Ian McAllister’s mouth in the middle of it. But anyway we sang it. Father Burke smiled at us, even though I knew this wasn’t the best singing he had ever heard in his life. He thanked us when we were done, and said he appreciated it.
“Can we do it again after I have a drink of juice, Father?” Ian asked, and Father said sure.
But we didn’t get to do it because that’s when Derek and Connor Delaney burst into the room, scared to death.
“We have to hide in here!” Derek yelled.
Father Burke went over to him. “What’s the trouble?”
“Those guys are chasing us again! They’ve got a baseball bat!”
Father Burke took off from the room, and went outside. We all trailed behind him even though he turned around and told us to stay inside.
There were two guys hiding in the doorway of the church. One was really short and the other was regular size.
“Boys! Come over here!” Father Burke told them.
“Make me!” one of them said.
“I’m hoping that won’t be necessary. Come here now and tell me what’s going on.”
“What’s it got to do with you?”
“I don’t like people being chased and threatened on the grounds of my church or my school, or anywhere else for that matter.”
But they didn’t move, so Father Burke went up the stairs of the church and put a hand on the shoulder of each one of them. The guy with the bat lifted it up but he looked more scared than dangerous, and Father Burke grabbed the bat and twisted it out of the guy’s hand, and threw it on the ground. Then he took both the boys by the arm and walked down the steps with them to the parking lot. Me and the other kids sneaked a little closer to them.
“All right, lads, what’s happening here?”
“We want our money back!” the short guy said.
“What money would this be now?”
“The money they owe us.” He pointed to Derek and Connor.
“What’s this about money?” Father Burke asked the Delaneys.
“We don’t know!” Connor answered.
“You do so!” the other guy argued.
“No, we don’t.”
“All right, all right, cool it down, fellows. You,” Father said, pointing to the short guy, “tell me about the money.”
“We paid money to their family so we could meet them and get a ride in the Mercedes. Then maybe even . . .” All of a sudden he sounded like he was going to cry.
Everybody turned around and gawked at Derek and Connor, and at Jenny and Laurence. They all looked shocked.
Father Burke didn’t say anything for a long time, just stared at the two boys. Then finally he said in a really quiet voice: “Who did you pay the money to?”
“That other guy, not them.” The short boy nodded at the Delaneys. “The other guy gave the money to them. Or he said he did.”
“So let me see if I have this right. You paid some money to another fellow, and that fellow said he paid it to one of the Delaneys.”
“Yeah.”
“Who was this other person?”
The two boys looked at each other; then the taller one said: “Just this guy we met.”
Father Burke turned to the Delaney kids and said, not in a mean voice, but a gentle voice: “You didn’t know anything about this, did you?”
“No! No, Father!” they all said, and you could tell it was the truth.
Father Burke turned back to the two other guys and stepped towards them. They stepped back and looked scared, but Father Burke said: “It’s all right, lads. Nobody’s going to hurt you. And you’re not going to hurt anybody either, am I correct?” They both nodded their heads. “I want to hear you both say to the boys and girls here that you’re not going to chase them or threaten them or do anything to them. Will you do that?”
They shuffled their feet and looked at one another, then the taller one said: “We won’t do nothin’.”
And the other guy said: “We won’t. We thought you guys probably had our money. But I guess you don’t.”
Father Burke asked them: “How much money did you pay?”
“Three hundred dollars.”
And Father looked surprised and said: “How did you come up with that much money?” No answer. “All right, we’d better leave that unexplored. I’ll tell you what.” He went over and put an arm around each of the two boys. At first they kind of stood really stiffly, but then they relaxed and it was almost as if he was hugging them. “I know you’ll keep your word about not bothering these kids anymore. And I’m going to make a promise to you. I’ll find out what I can about this money, and I’ll make sure — no matter what I find out — that you get all your money back.” They stared at him with big, wide-open eyes. “It may take a while. But I’m going to put that money in bank accounts for the pair of you. That way, I hope it won’t be spent unwisely. But that will be up to you. So shake hands with Derek and Connor here, and I’ll get your names and phone numbers.”
“Are you going to call the cops on us?”
“Oh, I think we can settle matters without any need for law enforcement.”
They came up and shook hands, and we all went inside except those two and Father Burke. Father stayed outside and talked to them some more. He must have got their names.
(Monty)
I was dictating a pretrial brief for a leaky-condominium case when Brennan arrived at my office. I spoke my last few words into the dictating machine, then turned it off and popped the tape out for my secretary to transcribe.
“What was all that about?” he asked.
“Another condo building has developed leaks. It’s three years old.”
“Newgrange,” he said.
“What?”
“Burial chamber in Ireland, made of turf and stones. It’s been watertight for five thousand years. If they could do a proper job of it then, what the hell is wrong with them now?”
“Don’t get me started on it.”
“I have to talk to you.”
“What is it?”
“Did you ever hear anything about young people paying for access to the Delaney family?”
“What?”
“A couple of Beau’s young fellows came in to Four-Four Time today. They were being chased by two other boys. I got things calmed down, then spoke to them privately. The long and the short of it is this: the boys say they paid fifty dollars each to get a ride in the Mercedes, and later they each paid another hundred dollars that was supposed to win them a hearing. A chance to plead their case for acceptance into the family as foster children.”
I sat there horrified.
Burke went on: “The two young lads have desperate home lives. Well, one of them is in some class of a group home, and the other has a mother who’s on crack; she and her boyfriend are pounding each other and their kids from the time they get up to the time they pass out again. Not hard to see why they took the bait. They wouldn’t tell me how they came up with the payments, but I think we can conclude they didn’t hold a bake sale.”
I finally found my voice. “Who did they pay the money to? Please don’t tell me it was Beau Delaney. Family is sacred to him. And those amounts of money? Delaney wouldn’t take his hand out of his pocket on a frosty day to receive —”
“It wasn’t Delaney. The boys couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me who it was. I told the young lads I’d get the money back to them and put it in an account. So whenever you suss out what happened, let me know and I’ll contact the pair of them.”
“Sure,” I answered. But I was barely listening. All I cared about was that it wasn’t Beau Delaney. And it was a guy, so I didn’t have to waste two seconds on the bizarre notion that it might have been Peggy, and that Delaney found out and confronted her at the top of the stairs. So if it wasn’t Beau or Peggy, how could it possibly hurt our case?