that. Finn MacCool. Christ, as if we’d gone to school together. If I did, I don’t remember him.”
“Did he always have that interest, your son?”
“We brought him here on visits when he was a kid, but back then he couldn’t get back on the plane quick enough. It was cold. It rained all the time. The people talked too much. Other kids here were out of it — all that. But then he started talking about things. I put it down to another shot at getting on my good side.”
Put it down: the phrase circled in Minogue’s mind. He thought of Daithi, how he still seemed to need to make him dispute, argue.
“Ah, some therapy thing there,” Leyne was saying ‘Discovering your family’ or somesuch. Victim shit. ‘Reinventing your parents’ was one of the things he blathered about once. Jesus wept. I mean, I had it explained to me by the people who ran it. The bottom line was, Patrick could get out of this habit he was always falling into if he learned more about us, about Geraldine and me. Figure that one out. Twenty-eight hundred dollars a week for that.”
“If he understood you as people, more than just parents, is it?”
“I suppose. He thought if he’d do all this reading about Ireland that this would sort it all out. Ancient Ireland, for God’s sake. Me and Finn MacCool, right?”
Leyne pulled his chair tighter into the table. Minogue eyed the bald spot, the once curly hair. It reminded him of some strange silver decoration on a Christmas tree, that light-as-gossamer stuff you pulled out of a ball and threw at the tree.
He spotted the top of the scar on his chest as Leyne straightened up. As though aware of the inspector’s interest, Leyne tugged at his collar. The gap closed. A glance at Freeman told Minogue that he too had been watching.
“So there,” muttered Leyne. “The Celts. Brian Boru. All the stuff I’d forgotten about fifty years ago. Talking about looking around for some university he could study it in. God, as if he had the marks to get into one. At the time he started this, I was just after getting into the foundation thing. I got talked into it a few years ago. What’s it now, Jeff, the scholarship bit?”
“The Leyne Foundation,” said Freeman. “Scholarship to study in Irish universities and four for Irish students to study in the U.S. The Visiting Lecturer Chair will start up this year.”
“So,” said Leyne. “I thought, well, Patrick saw an angle here. Sour, aren’t I?”
“Let me go back to your son’s situation just before he left for Ireland. He was holding down a job?”
“Yes. And he still had his own place too.”
“He lived alone there.”
“That’s what he told me. He stayed over with Geraldine the odd time.”
Minogue looked down at the page. Next time there’d be a tape, damn it.
“Eight schools,” said Leyne. “Eight different schools. But he just didn’t find that aptitude, whatever you call it. That focus. We worked and we worked, Geraldine and me — Geraldine and I. You’d think we’d be bitter, but we weren’t. We’re not. Geraldine dumped me, Mike.”
“Matt.”
“Matt. Sorry. She did. Geraldine is a lady. How I blew it was I had no discretion. I didn’t have those smarts then, patience. Why would I? I wasn’t born with a goddamn silver spoon in my mouth. I was hungry to make it. I went at a lot of things with the head down.”
Minogue eased another tissue out of his package. He glanced at Leyne’s shirt collar again. It remained closed.
“We don’t play the blame game,” Leyne said. “Geraldine and I. That’s why I came to offer you what I can. To ask your help. For the second time.”
He stared at Minogue. The inspector looked around the wall. The print of the mountains must be Rachel Tynan’s.
“You’re steamed, aren’t you?”
Minogue glanced up from his tissue. Tynan began flexing his fingers again “You think who’s this fucking tycoon sitting in here, going around your back, pulling strings. Leyne Foundation, money to the university here — what’s the title?”
“The Leyne Chair in Early Irish History,” said Freeman.
“This is not about special treatment here, Matt. I’m here to help. So’s Geraldine. Patrick grew up with Geraldine. She did everything she could. She got him counseling and everything when he screwed up. It was her idea to start the private eye stuff.”
Freeman began lifting three-ring binders from a bag on the floor next to his chair. They had a faux-marble finish. He slid them one by one down the table.
“This was after the first one. We settled that. It took nearly two years. The lawyers made a killing. The two- year thing was good because he had it hanging over him. She was a hooker, I don’t care what anyone says. I still say he was set up. Her and that bastard who represented her at the hearings and all that.”
He grunted as he slid the stack. Minogue made no move to take them.
“How does this help our investigation, Mr. Leyne?”
“I don’t know if it does or not. It’s my way of saying, of proving to you that I’ll do anything I can to help you find out who killed Patrick.”
“What does this cover?”
“There’s three and a bit years. The full time was on for six months after he got stuck with that bitch.”
Minogue looked at the logo on the spine of the folders.
“Shawmut’s a small agency,” said Freeman. “But it’s done a lot of corporate stuff. Has a very good name.”
“They did great stuff for people I knew,” said Leyne. “They were trying to figure out how their competitors were always two steps ahead. They couldn’t nail this Alison one on anything for us but they kept us clear on Patrick. It was to protect him. Us too, of course. There were people who’d like to have worked him and run one by us, I’m sure. Like that first one.”
Minogue glanced at O’Riordan. He hadn’t uttered a word. Sitting there, with a grave expression all through this.
“It’s not pretty,” said Leyne “And I hate damn near every word of every fucking page in here. That’s my son in there, but it’s like he’s a specimen. I paid for this, you know, and it kills me. Isn’t that something?”
Minogue saw his eyes well up and he looked away. O’Riordan pursed his lips and patted Leyne on the shoulder. Leyne rubbed at his eyes, he took a deep breath and set his jaw. Minogue thought he heard a sigh. O’Riordan’s hand stayed on Leyne’s shoulder and he looked at the faces around the table. It was over then, was it, Minogue registered. The urge to sneeze had gone. Tynan pushed his chair back and slowly stood.
CHAPTER 13
'Great,” said Malone. “Fucking great. A ton of books telling us who or what he did three thousand miles away. What a load of crap, for Jases’ sake.”
Minogue flipped by dividers. Patrick Leyne Shaughnessy had been a restless man. Maybe he should be cross- referencing these to phases of the moon. He stopped on a page that described a club called Coasters. June last year. Patrick had stayed for an hour. Left with a patron named Laura. Stayed at her apartment until exited at eleven-fifteen the following day. What was NCR? An adding machine?
“Talk about hopping the ball, boss. Mind if I puke?”
No Criminal Record — of course. She worked in a fitness club.
“What?”
“He’s trying to steer the case, boss! Wake up, will you? You with me now?”
To the Exchange, lunch. Exited three-thirty with Karen Weiss to 301 Hyacinth Boulevard. Exited five forty- eight on foot to street. Taxi to apartment… Nice work, this property development job.
“Twenty-four hours a day, this crowd,” he murmured. “That’d cost.”
“Huh. To get him whatever his oul lad rigged up for him.”
