35

Richard Byrne was buried a week later, on a Friday morning.

His last will and testament called for a private service – absolutely no outsiders. It also requested that Father Keith Cullen handle all the arrangements. Cullen, Mickey discovered, was also the executor of Byrne’s estate.

For his time and efforts, and possibly for his early years of friendship with Byrne, Cullen was given a tidy sum of money – $25,000, according to the will – along with ownership of Byrne’s home. $20,000 was given to Grace Humphrey, Byrne’s hospice nurse, ‘for her wonderful care, love and attention’.

Mickey had found these details online. Someone had leaked a copy of Byrne’s will to the Boston Herald. Other media outlets found out and ran with the story.

What made all this even more interesting was that the week before he died, Byrne had called his lawyer and asked for two more people to be put into his will: Dr Darby McCormick, for her ‘kindness, patience, understanding and friendship over the years’, and Detective Sergeant Benjamin Kennedy of the Belham Police Force, for ‘protecting the values of the Catholic Church, and steadfastly believing in my innocence’. Each was given the sum of $10,000.

‘Byrne wants to control the narrative even after death,’ Darby explained to Mickey again, as they sat in her rental car, watching the funeral from afar. It was the same thing she had told him days ago, when the news broke. ‘He added my name and Kennedy’s name to his will at the last minute so we’d be thrown into the spotlight and taken off the case because of possible ethical conflicts. He wants to take everyone he can down with him. And no matter how much Chris Kennedy and I explain ourselves, Byrne’s stink of suspicion will follow us everywhere.’

The media showed up in droves at St Stephen’s Church. While Father Cullen, who had come back from his vacation to handle the service, had barred reporters and cameras from attending the church service, he couldn’t prevent people from setting up shop on public property. Cameramen lined the main street, along with onlookers and groups of protesters, with Belham PD performing crowd control. Mickey had heard through the grapevine that a lot of cops had refused to work the detail. He’d also heard that Father Keith had paid a visit to the station before the funeral and made a personal appeal to the officers, many of whom were Catholic, urging them to leave judgement in God’s hands and to do their job. Many Belham PD officers still said no to the lucrative overtime. Boston PD had stepped in.

The cameramen jumped to attention when the front doors to the church opened and the pallbearers, four young men on loan from McGill-Flattery Funeral Home, stepped out with the casket. Flashbulbs popped and cameras clicked with the rapidity of machine-gun fire. The police detail had to clear a path for the hearse.

Mickey watched all this from the passenger’s seat. They were parked across the street, away from the mob. Even though the day was overcast, he wore sunglasses.

‘The cemetery’s going to be just as bad,’ Darby said. ‘Probably even worse.’

Mickey didn’t respond, just sat there, staring at a small group of protesters huddled together on the kerb. It was hard not to stare at them. For starters, they all wore white winter coats and white hats, this mix of men, women and children. They didn’t talk to each other or to anyone else, just held protest signs high over the heads of the crowd, the words printed in large block letters against bold rainbow colours: SODOMITES BURN IN HELL and GOD HATES YOUR PRIESTS and AMERICA IS DOOMED. Mickey spotted one that read ABORTION = HELL!!!

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Darby asked.

Mickey nodded, eyeing a small girl of around seven or eight holding a sign that read DIE FAGS & JEWS. ‘Who are those people? The ones dressed all in white?’

‘Members of a fringe hate group from Kansas called Soldiers of Truth and Light.’

‘What are they doing all the way up here?’

‘They tour the country protesting at funerals of priests and soldiers. Abortion clinics. They protest everything – homosexuals, the Jews, the Catholic Church, school shootings.’ She must have seen the question in his eyes, because she said, ‘They believe God sends these shooters to the schools to execute His judgement.’

Mickey glanced at his watch. ‘We should get going to the cemetery.’

Darby took in a deep breath.

‘I have to go there,’ he said.

‘But you still haven’t explained why.’

‘I just need to.’

‘Mickey, cops can keep the press out of the cemetery, but we can’t keep them from holding their cameras up over the cemetery walls. They’ve already set up shop on Evergreen. They’re standing on the roofs of their vans to get a better view of the graveside. You go in there and they see you, your face will be playing all over the news.’

‘If you don’t want to take me there, I can have someone else take me.’

Darby sighed again. She put the car into gear.

Downtown traffic was light. They pulled on to Parker Avenue and drove up a steep hill, and when they passed Evergreen – a long street of tract housing for the terminally homeless and addicts wanting to kick booze and drugs to start a new life – Mickey saw a lot of people gathered on the streets and on their front steps and porches, their hands trembling as they lit cigarettes and drank coffee and watched reporters get their hair and makeup touched up. News vans were parked up on the sidewalks; satellite feeds extended into a sky threatening to burst with rain and possibly snow.

Darby wasn’t the only one who had wanted to know why Mickey insisted on going to the cemetery today. It was difficult to put into words, this … compulsion to be at the grave when Byrne was buried. He figured it might have something to do with the dreams he’d had following Byrne’s death, ones in which the ex-priest had been laid on an autopsy table, his last words visible in a pool of blood inside his mouth, floating like scrambled letters in a bowl of alphabet soup. All he had to do was to pick out the letters, sort them out, and he’d have the answer – to what, Mickey didn’t know. But the coroner or whatever he was called started to sew Byrne’s mouth shut and Mickey was outside the room, pounding on an unbreakable window, screaming for just a few minutes alone with Byrne. There was still time, he screamed. There was still time.

His cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He took it out and glanced at the screen: NO CALLER ID. Another reporter, he thought, and let the call go to voicemail. The bastards wouldn’t stop calling.

Darby hooked a left on to Hancock. Two cruisers were parked near the entrance to the cemetery. She rolled down a window and waved to the patrolman, who turned around and opened the gate. Mickey knew Darby had made these arrangements in advance with Kennedy.

They drove into the cemetery. When Darby pulled over to the side, Mickey saw, up on the Hill and in clear view, the rectangle of dirt where Byrne was about to be buried and felt a bullet of fear tear through him.

Darby put the car into park. ‘How much have you had to drink this morning?’ she asked gently.

Only two, he thought. Which was somewhat true. He’d only had two glasses of bourbon – two big glasses, to remove the bite from his hangover.

‘I’m fine,’ he said.

She took in a deep breath, about to launch into a lecture, he was sure, when he cut her off. ‘What business is it of yours?’ The words sounded lifeless in his ears; he didn’t have the energy to argue. ‘He’s dead, remember? The order of protection no longer applies.’

Mickey opened the door.

Darby gripped his arm. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to say this again. Kennedy is doing this for you as a favour. His ass is on the line, so don’t do anything stupid.’

‘You worried you won’t get your ten K?’

The skin of her face stretched tight across the bone, but she said nothing.

Mickey got out of the car and his phone rang again. NO CALLER ID. By the end of today, his voicemail would be full.

He walked alone up a slope of damp grass, heading towards what looked like a utility shed. To its right was a small patch of trees that hadn’t been cleared.

He had no intention of creating a scene this morning. What was the point? Byrne was dead: the priest had decided to create his own exit, suffocating himself while he jerked off in the corner of his bedroom.

Mickey saw the contraption that would lower Byrne into his final resting place and took a couple of belts from his flask. Thank God bourbon was back in his life. It was keeping his mind glued together.

The hearse and limousine pulled on to Evergreen. A half-dozen or so blue uniforms assigned to traffic duty went to work to clear the area to let the vehicles through. A few minutes later, the hearse and limo had parked near the gravesite.

The young pallbearers got out and carried Byrne’s coffin up the slope, Father Cullen sombrely trailing behind them, the man looking like a lumberjack dressed in his priestly robes.

The pallbearers placed Byrne’s coffin on the thick black belts of the lowering device and then stepped back, bowing their heads and folding their hands behind their backs. Mickey wiped the sleeve of his sweatshirt across his damp forehead.

Father Cullen opened his Bible. ‘Let us pray.’

‘Mickey.’

Wide awake with that middle of the night terror that tells him something is wrong with the baby. Heather is coming up on Week 22 of her pregnancy, her swollen belly holding the girl they’re going to name Claire, and now something’s wrong – something’s clearly wrong.

His keys and wallet are on the nightstand, so he doesn’t have to hunt for them in the middle of the night. He grabs them as he sits up in bed.

‘No, Mickey, it’s okay. Give me your hand.’

He does, and she places it on her belly.

Kicking. The baby was kicking.

‘Can you feel it?’

He did. Claire is kicking up a storm. Mickey smiles and Heather lies back down, and, as he begins to relax, easing himself on to his side, he keeps his hand on her belly, feeling the life forming beneath her skin. Just give me this, God. Just give me this and it will be enough, I swear. I swear to you, God, I’ll never ask you for another thing.

A rumble of gears tore Mickey from the memory. He watched the coffin as it was lowered into the ground. He thought of his dreams – Byrne on the morgue table, those letters floating inside his bloody mouth – and felt so light-headed he thought he might pass out.

Only God knows what is true.

The coffin was in the ground now, hidden from view, waiting to be buried.

‘Amen,’ Father Cullen said, and closed his Bible.

It was over.

Mickey dug his fingers into the bark of the tree. It kept him from screaming.

His phone vibrated – not a call but a text. He welcomed the distraction.

The text was from Jim: ‘Heather called me. She’s been trying to call u & says u won’t pick up & wants u to call her.’ He gave Mickey a long list of numbers, which confused him. Then he figured it out: it was an international number. Heather was still running around Europe or wherever.

He didn’t have to call her. She was calling him again.

‘Mickey?’ It was Heather, her panicked voice having an odd echo to it.

‘I can barely hear you.’

‘I’m calling you from France.’ Her words came out in such a hurry that she sounded winded, as though she had just completed a long, gruelling run. ‘I just found out. I’ve been staying out on a farm. There’s no TV, and they don’t have the Internet – it doesn’t matter. I just booked a red-eye. I’ll be home tomorrow. Are you okay? Where are you?’

Mickey’s attention ran up the hill of dead grass, stopped at Byrne’s headstone.

‘Mickey? Can you hear me?’

‘I’m at Byrne’s grave.’

A long silence followed.

‘Why would you do that to yourself?’ Heather asked.

The need to scream was building inside his chest. He needed to reel it in, needed to look away from the headstone and grave and couldn’t.

‘You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself,’ Heather said, her sympathy feeling like spit on his face. ‘How many times have I told you – I don’t blame you for what happened.’

I’m done, Heather. With you. With us. I can’t take living with someone who is constantly terrified of life, who refuses to allow me a say in anything I want as a father or husband. I’m sick and tired of it, Heather, and I’m sick and tired of you. I don’t want you any more, and I don’t want this life. I want fucking out.

‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘I took her there that night.’

‘Remember that time at the grocery store? Claire was with me and I turned my head for a second and she was gone. They started to tear the place up and five minutes later I found her outside talking to a woman. Claire thought it was the mother of a friend and she had followed her out and –’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘What don’t I understand?’

That night on the Hill I let Claire walk up the Hill by herself because I was pissed at you. That night I prayed for a way out and God gave me one.

‘Please,’ Heather said. She sounded on the verge of tears. ‘Please let me in. I want to help you.’

Mickey wanted to say the words. He needed to say them. He opened his mouth to speak and a moan escaped his lips. The guilt, the anger, the love he still carried for his daughter and the life they had once shared – everything he had carried for the past eleven years and everything he wanted to say was lost, drowning in his sobs.