2

 

The body was discovered late that afternoon.

The maintenance man was puzzled when he saw the OUT OF ORDER sign in front of the stall. A defective toilet was not on his repair list. But there it was. He would have to try to fix it.

The next puzzler was the locked door. Why would anyone lock a stall door from the inside, whether the toilet was working or not?

Crawling beneath the door, he glimpsed the body grotesquely positioned on the toilet. With a quick intake of breath, he scrambled awkwardly back.

Nor would he reenter. When the Gardai arrived, one of the officers had to climb into the stall and unlock the door. This was not the United States; the Gardai were shocked at what they found.

Soon, homicide detectives arrived, along with technicians. The crime scene was studied, recorded, and analyzed with great care.

Standing at the rear of the gents’ room somewhat apart from the immediate action were Sean O’Reardon, Superintendent Garda Siochana from the headquarters in Phoenix Park, and his chief detective, Sergeant Thomas Carty.

O’Reardon warmed his hands on the still-hot bowl of his pipe. Out of consideration for the others in this restricted space, he would not puff. “Well, then,” he said, “quite a sight.”

Carty rubbed his fingers over his chin stubble. “It is.” He cleared his throat. “Can’t say that I’ve ever laid eyes … maybe in the north …”

O’Reardon’s eyebrows lifted.

Carty hesitated. He didn’t want to seem to be lecturing. “Um, you know, the symbolic sort of thing. Kneecapping … uh … like that. Sort of a significant punishment short of death. Like what God might do to you for a venial sin—short of a mortal sin.”

“Ummm.” O’Reardon pondered that. “So, that’s what you’re thinking, Tom. Then what do you suppose it is somebody’s trying to tell us with this caper?”

Carty dug a little deeper in his stubble. “Damned if I can guess it, Sean.”

“Nor I. If it’s the Provos, they surely ought to make themselves more clear. In this case, they should’ve written it out in detail and attached it to the poor man’s forehead. Do you know, did they find the clothing?”

“Not yet. We’re going over the whole terminal. Nothing so far. We’re checking the pickup schedule. Maybe something will turn up.”

“Well, he didn’t walk in here naked.” Pause. “Did he?”

Carty smiled. “Nothing out of the ordinary today. And there’s plenty would notice a man walkin’ around with no clothes on. That’s one puzzle we won’t have to solve, please God. No, he lost his britches in here. And that’s for certain and sure.”

“Ah,” O’Reardon agreed, “and more than his britches. Everything! Even his drawers. Who the hell would want his drawers?!”

Recognizing the question as rhetorical, Carty merely shook his head. “‘Then the hobo drooped his weary head/And breathed his last refrain/His comrade swiped his shoes and socks/And hopped an east-bound train—’”

A deferential young Garda interrupted the sotto voce solo. “The coroner is finished, Super. He says the man’s neck was broken. And that’d be the cause of death … at least until they get at a complete autopsy.”

O’Reardon nodded. The Garda returned to his duties.

O’Reardon and Carty approached the corpse that now had been stretched out on the lavatory floor preparatory to being inserted in a body bag. “The boys?” O’Reardon wondered softly.

Carty shrugged. “Sort of depends on who the victim is. I can’t place him. You?”

O’Reardon shook his head. “Rings no bells with me. Got a bit of stubble there on his chin.”

“Could be a tramp. Maybe the song rings true … the part about the comrade swiping his shoes and socks—and, in this case, his drawers as well—and skipped.”

O’Reardon said nothing. Then, “There’s something … something that makes me think he was more than a tramp … although I couldn’t say what. Any one of us naked and dead would be reduced to common clay. But there’s something …

“What do you think about the cause of death?”

“What?”

“Broken neck.”

“Odd, yes …”

“No blood anywhere. Looks as if there was no struggle … like somebody just up and broke the poor sod’s neck.”

“Have to be pretty strong, wouldn’t he …”

“And,” O’Reardon added, “confident of his own strength.”

“Right. If the first twist doesn’t do the job, the killer’s in for a fight, sure enough.”

O’Reardon flexed his shoulders and nodded to the Gardai. They removed the body and began packing their equipment.

“Well,” O’Reardon said as the two detectives left the men’s lavatory and walked through the terminal, “it’s a small country. Somebody must know him. If, indeed, he’s from here. Maybe we can get an IdentiKit picture on tonight’s late news. Maybe somebody will identify him.”

“I’ll see to that,” Carty said. He had to force himself to slow his pace. Normally, by this time, he would’ve been far ahead of his colleague. O’Reardon seemed almost totally lost in thought.

“The who’s important, all right,” O’Reardon mused. “And then we’ve got all those why’s. Why the air terminal? Why the broken neck? Why remove all the clothing? Lots and lots of questions.”

“One thing: There won’t be much pressure.”

“Hmm?”

“The type of crime,” Carty said, “that attracts some popular attention for just a bit, then they move on to something else. They’ll probably think the nakedness a bit crude. In a few days the public’ll lose interest entirely. And, once the public loses interest, so does the media. And when the media loses interest, so does the government. So … the pressure on us is not going to be very intense, I’ll bet.”

“There’s a good bit of truth in what you say, Tom. But I won’t forget this one soon. There are just too many odd little things to bug me. I can see it coming. We’re going to need a lot of luck—or guidance from above.” O’Reardon tried to hide a pixieish smile. “No doubt about it, Tom: We’ll need help from the good Lord. And did you remember to go to Mass today?”

“I did not.”

“Oh? Herself didn’t grab you by the ear and drag you off to church?”

“No. In point of fact, she didn’t go at all.”

“Mary? Mary didn’t go? Of a Sunday, she didn’t go to Mass? She’s not ill, now, is she?”

Carty stopped and turned to his superintendent. “In ainm an Athar agus n Mhic agus and Spioraid Naoimah.” It was the sign of the cross.

O’Reardon chuckled. “Said Mass in the Irish, did he?”

Carty nodded. “And what with the missus waitin’ for the return of the Latin, it’s all too much for her, I’m afraid.”

“His Reverence had better not pull that again. If I can’t count on you—and I can’t—I’ve got to depend on Mary’s prayers.”