Chapter XV - Case Solved?
2011, Sligo
“JAYSUS! What the feck, Sue! What are you telling me? Sabrina turns up next door to the White House, twenty years after having a sleazy affair with Merrill, and giving birth to his bastard son. You sure?”
“Language dear. Tut, tut. Yeah, unbelievable, eh? It’s all here—pages of the stuff.” Sue is beavering away at her PC keyboard. “I’m in the Eisenhower Museum Archives now. Sabrina here, Sabrina there. Top personal assistant to some of the most powerful men on the planet in the 40’s and 50’s.”
Jed is not convinced, “There must be two ‘Sabrina O'Haras.’ I know it’s not the commonest of names, but America’s a big place.”
Sue interjects, “Well, this Sabrina was born in 1914, just like Merrill’s teenage floozy. And she turns up in public record databases up to the year 2000 living in Arlington.”
Jed is intrigued, “Anyone else in the household?” The question is asked just at the moment that the progress bar on Sue’s U.S.A. People Radar search program turns green, indicating that a comprehensive trawl has been completed, and that a matching person has been found.
“Yessirree! A male referred to as ‘Edward,’ ‘Ned’ or Paul O’Hara ... always with a birth year of 1932. It’s gotta’ be him—Merrill and Sabrina’s secret love child.”
“Hallelujah!!” howls Jed, hands raised heavenwards.
Sue is keeping calmer: “What was the unnamed child’s D.O.B. in the Iowa court case file?”
Jed jumps up instantly and roots about in the box full of loose leafed notes, “Here we are: the paternity suit. Child’s date of birth: May 13, 1932.”
Sue opens up two computer screens at once and commences birth record searches for the alternative names, ‘Edward O'Hara’ and ‘Paul O'Hara‘ - ‘birth year 1932.’ “Yee-hah! Paul O'Hara, born ‘13 May, St Paul, Minnesota.’ You believe me now?”
Jed’s mind races, “We gotta’ get in touch with him. What is he? 78 or 79? That’s young for well-to-do Americans. What’s his phone number? Quick, quick. We‘re on a roll.”
Sue bashes away on her keyboard, interrogating a different search engine, “Here it is .... it’s 001. Hang on.”
“What!…what?” Their moment of elation disintegrates as Jed notices that oh-too-familiar look on Sue’s face. “Paul died 18 months ago.” They look at each other across the office. The adrenalin rush fades away. Their looks of disappointment offer scant consolation to each other.
Jed is dejected, “Ah well, it’ll save the price of another long transatlantic phone call. I bet he wouldn’t have known anything about his father anyway. But then again, how did his mother Sabrina get this high-flying job when she’s a single parent mother, possibly never married? Those God-fearing Presbyterians in the White House wouldn’t employ any old trash.”
“Yet another mystery for Jed the Genie to solve,” Sue gallantly tries to raise the mood.
Jed smiles at the mention of his latest affectionate nickname, “This story is just crazy. Can’t wait to tell Tim tonight.”
1940, Washington DC
Sabrina, on the phone, discreetly speaking to a registrar’s clerk in Minnesota: “Yes, that’s right. I just dug out my son Paul’s birth certificate, and someone has written my name as ‘Rourke.’ It was probably my husband James’ fault, what with all the excitement back then. That’s my mother’s maiden name. We’re both called O'Hara, distant cousins, although no-one in the family knew quite how. We must all be descended from the same Irish chieftain or something, I guess.”
Sabrina desperately wants to ensure that U.S. government officials don’t start checking her background further, with the possibility of the War Department job in her lap. She is in a private office, with the door closed. The call-taker says that she will require full ID for the amendment application process.
“Well, my date of birth is February 12, 1914, Fredericksburg, Iowa. You can verify that with your colleagues. I also work for the government, like you. I’m in Washington, right across the way from the White House. I just need Paul’s birth certificate corrected. It’s embarrassing for my husband James; he works in the Senate.”
The Minnesota registrar’s clerk is impressed by Sabrina‘s convincingly delivered but false last statement, “Really? How wonderful.”
“Yeah, I started out like you; working at City Hall. There’s great admin opportunities over here. You should come down and take a look around some time. It’s a beautiful city. I‘m sure you could get on just fine.”
The starry-eyed clerk agrees that the amendment can be made, so long as her Iowa counterparts confirm Sabrina’s birth ID. Sabrina assures her that that will just be a formality. Sabrina asks for the revised document to be sent to her grand-sounding D.C. work address, “…and you will mark it ‘private and confidential,’ won‘t you? Okay, thanks so much. You‘re a sweetie.”
2011, Sligo
Jed drowns his sorrows with a glass of red wine, sitting outside his home in the tranquil evening sunshine. He is taking in the silence. No traffic noise. No thundering machinery that deafened him on the building sites just a few years back. Just the odd interruption of a faraway bleating lamb. Life in the countryside had its appeal, even if Sue could not find her fashion accessories for miles around.
“What a day! It was worth a try, and we did discover that a small-town girl with a secret ended up brushing shoulders with the likes of Dwight Eisenhower, no less. I bet even the CIA never knew that!” Jed is calling out to Sue in the distance who has reappeared with Shankley, her large dog, after their afternoon exercise walk: “We’re running out of characters to research who knew Merrill in the 1930’s. His mother died when he was young. His father Thaddeus died in 1937, and didn’t seem to have kept in close contact. Merrill’s free and single after two marriages. His brother Leroy’s gone and hanged himself. He owes money everywhere. Where would he go?”
Sue is now playing with Shankley on the lawn, having freed him from his leash. “What about Horace?” she says.
Jed dismisses the idea, “What about him? Horace was around in the mid-20’s, dabbling in Forster real estate transactions. We’re talking about 1937 now. He must have been some distant relation, but he just isn’t mentioned in the court file box after about 1930. He was probably just an old guy who died off.”
“Yeah, probably.“ Sue agrees.
“I can tell you, Sue, he wasn’t a close relative. I’ve gone over that Forster family time and again. Besides Adolph, the only other brother who had kids was Leo Junior—you know, son of Leo the tailor. Madeline’s uncle Hubert remained a bachelor. Leo Junior had a son called ‘Harold‘, and after his suicide it looks like Leo Junior’s wife and Harold just took off and re-settled somewhere else. They’re not in St. Paul. I don’t blame them. Your respected young husband shoots his brains out—you gotta get out of there; start again somewhere else.”
Sue, exhausted from doggy play fights, plops herself down in the spare garden chair on the timber decking,“My God, Jed. You’re maudlin. Relax, for tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll check out Horace again for you.”