Deadly Ancestors: A Bernadette Callahan Mystery (Bernadette Callahan Detective Series Book 5) Read online

  The interview with Evanston and Sawchuk showed little. Cahal kept saying he could not remember much of the night. He’d stated that with his age and the long flight from Dublin to Calgary, he’d become disoriented.

  When Evanston asked him why he visited the seminary so late at night, he claimed the jet lag from the long flight and the fact that he hadn’t changed his watch from Ireland made him forget the time.

  The file had a copy of the ticket from his flight. He’d left Dublin at 0835 on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, and then a direct flight to Calgary that arrived at 1455. The flight was nine and a half hours. On his entry at Canada Customs he’d written in Detective Bernadette Callahan as his contact in Canada. He’d written in her home address but not her cell phone number. Instead he’d given the phone number of the RCMP headquarters in Red Deer.

  How he made the two-hour drive to Red Deer from the airport in Calgary was another mystery. He said he found a ride with some good people he met at the airport who dropped him at a gas station on a main road into town. From there, he claims he found another lift to the seminary.

  His reason for going to the seminary was that he’d tried to reach his niece, Bernadette Callahan, but was told she was away until further notice. He decided he’d go to the seminary to wait for his niece, Bernadette, to return.

  Evanston had asked why Cahal didn’t leave a phone message for Bernadette. He said he didn’t want to spoil the surprise.

  He claimed he was going to make a surprise visit to his old friend Father Dominic instead. They’d been to a boy’s home together at one time. Father Dominic couldn’t corroborate the report, as he was not lucid as yet.

  There was also the charge of an illegal weapon. Cahal claimed he had no knowledge that his knife was illegal. He’d been given the knife as a gift and kept it as memory of that person. However, he couldn’t recall the name of that person.

  Bernadette sighed as she read the report. This was either the most confused old man or the perfect alibi.

  She pulled out the incident report and found little to work with. No witness to the shooting and no weapon. They’d retrieved a bullet that was shot at Father Dominic but no shell casing.

  From running the bullet through the IBIS, the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, from an uploaded scan of the bullet and an exhaustive check, Evanston had determined the gun as a Sturm Ruger pistol and the bullet a twenty-two caliber.

  Bernadette let her finger rest on the information. Who the hell brings a twenty-two to kill someone, unless you get close in? The chapel was small and the range close, but if you wanted to knock someone off, why not bring along a nine-millimeter?

  The report went onto say that the bullet grazed Father Dominic; had it been a millimeter more to the right, he would have been dead. The injury had resulted in a concussion. Something he would recover from, but at his age it would take time. There was also a note on the report about a screw up at hospital, but it only mentioned, “a misdiagnosis resulting in a lack of being able to speak with the victim.”

  The final remark on the report was no GSR found on the suspect. That meant no gun shot residue on Cahal’s hands. But he was found without gloves. Had he dropped them somewhere?

  She rubbed her forehead; she had more questions than answers. She closed the file and dropped the file back on Evanston’s’ desk.

  Evanston looked up at her as she slid the file back under her pile. “You satisfied now?”

  “Not really. How long before you have to spring him on what you brought him in on?”

  Evanston raised an eyebrow. “Wow, that obvious, huh? The Crown Prosecutor asked for another thirty-six hours for us to recover any evidence.”

  “Is the judge going for it?”

  “I think so. Cahal’s all we got. Unless a ghost fired the gun, he’s the only man around. We have a team of officers with a dog doing a search for the weapon today. Maybe something will turn up.”

  Bernadette walked out of the office. The mention of the word ghost sent a chill down her spine. This man who claimed to be her uncle had the weirdest story and had appeared in her life at the strangest time. She needed to see him face to face.

  3

  The remand center was a short walk from the police detachment, so was the courthouse. The justice system worked like this: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Force made the arrests; the accused appeared in court, then off to the remand center while the crown prosecutor and the defense lawyers haggled over the case.

  The final word was the judge. From there the accused made their way through the Canadian legal system. A good defense, or in most cases a decent alibi and no witnesses, saw an accused go free. A bad defense and no alibi meant you were in remand; you stayed there until your case was heard and if guilty, off you went to a provincial or federal jail depending on your sentence.

  The legal system had placed all the buildings close by to work in tune with each other, but the process churned slowly. Not enough clerks, not enough lawyers, and too many clients clogged the system. People could languish in remand for months waiting for their trials to be heard while lawyers, judges, and clerks fought mountains of paper to deal with them.

  The only get out of jail card was lack of evidence to process an accused. The system had forty-eight hours, with an allowance of another seventy-two if the police needed more time.

  As Bernadette walked the two blocks from the police headquarters to the remand center, she knew the clock was ticking. The police had only circumstantial evidence on Cahal Callahan, so thin that no prosecutor in his right mind would present it to a judge without getting a reprimand and told to not waste his time.

  The sun was finally showing itself at 8 a.m.; it shone bright in the sky but did nothing for the February chill. Snow covered the sidewalks and streets. A snowplow roared by, plowing the snow onto the sidewalk, and a man on the sidewalk cursed as his shoveling work was added to. The snowplow moved on as more snow fell and piled up behind it.

  Bernadette made her way inside the center, stamping her boots to clear off the snow and taking off her gloves. Behind the reception desk, Ernest Rheingold smiled as he saw her. She’d caught a break; he was a good guy to deal with. She’d known him for the past several years.

  Ernest was pushing past sixty and close to his pension. He was almost as wide as he was high, with a large head of gray hair and big mustache that gave him the nickname of the Walrus. He treated everyone with a smile and wave, wanted everyone, including the inmates to relax; hard to do in a place like this. The center had one hundred and forty-seven beds. Ernest was so cheerful when you came in, you might think you’d entered a low-cost hotel. But that wasn’t the case.

  The place smelled of strong disinfectant to mask the state of many of the inmates who entered the facility. They were often drunk, high on drugs or just pulled from the street. This is was not a happy place.

  This was a place where people ended up who wondered how or when they might be set free or when they would start serving a longer sentence in a more hardened facility.

  Ernest smiled when he saw Bernadette., “Well, Detective Callahan, a delight to see you this frosty morning. I suspect you’re here on official business. Which of our wonderful guests would you care to visit this morning?”

  Bernadette came right to the window and pressed her face to the glass and the speaker so the other guard couldn’t hear. “I’m here unofficially, Ernest. I need to see, Cahal Callahan…kind of family business.”

  “Ah, I see. Let me get you signed in on a regular visitor pass. I’ll need a piece of ID of course, Ms. Callahan,” Ernest said.

  Bernadette nodded and pulled out her driver’s license. They best thing about Ernest is he got it right away. He knew the law, that she couldn’t be seeing Cahal officially. He also knew that he was violating the protocol of regular visiting hours, but that didn’t bother Ernest. He signed her in and told her wait in the sparse waiting room.

  The waiting room had rows of plastic chairs facing each
other that allowed you to see the misery on the faces of visitors to this place. There, you could sit across from someone and wonder if their loved ones were in as much shit as the person you were about to see.

  It took all of twenty minutes before Ernest motioned for Bernadette to go through the large metal door. The door buzzed and she entered a small room with a window. She showed her visitors badge and got buzzed through the second door.

  A guard named Jenkins met her on the other side. The little smirk on his face said it all. Here was a detective to see a relative. Her hand twitched; she’d love to slap that grin right off his face. She nodded at him and followed him to the visitor’s room.

  Jenkins opened the door, said she had fifteen minutes, and swung the door shut behind her.

  There, leaning back in a chair wearing an orange jumpsuit, sat Cahal Callahan. He had shaggy gray hair and bushy eyebrows, a long and narrow face with thin lips and pale green eyes that watched her as she entered.

  “I was wondering when you might appear, my dear Bernadette. My god, you do look so much like your father. What a delight it is to see you, and here I am all tied up in this infernal mess, you must wonder the state of your old uncle,” he said in rapid-fire sentences as he began to get up from his chair.

  “Don’t get up. Stay where you are.” Bernadette said. “There is no touching of prisoners. Please, be seated.”

  Bernadette took a chair at a table across from Cahal. “As for me being your relative, that remains to be seen.”

  Cahal brushed his hand through this hair. “What? You mean to say your father never spoke of me or your aunt Aideen?”

  Bernadette held his gaze, “Nope, never mentioned you. I thought all his relations in Ireland were dead—or not speaking to him if they were alive.”

  Cahal sat up and threw his hands in the air. “Ah, me and your father, Dominic, did have a bit of a falling out, as it were.”

  “Really?” Bernadette asked as she crossed her arms. “Why don’t you enlighten me about the Callahan clan that I’ve never heard from until now.”

  “Well, it was the time of the Troubles in Ireland. Your father was all of fifteen or sixteen when he got involved.”

  “Got in involved how?”

  Cahal wiped his hand across his face as if he was allowing his memory to reboot. “He got in with the petrol bombers. A bunch of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys, too young to join the IRA, would throw Molotov cocktails at the police then they’d run like hell.” He looked up at her. “The British army had enough of it, and they said they’d shoot all petrol bombers dead. I told your dad to get out of Ireland before he became a martyr.”

  “He hated you for that. For saving his life?”

  “Your da was thick skinned, not taken to instructions. I had to forcibly remove him from his mates and throw him on a boat to get him away.”

  “Explain forcibly to me,” Bernadette said, unfolding her arms and leaning across the table.

  Cahal dropped his head. “I put a drug in your da’s pint, then dropped him off at the harbor. I put him on a container ship as a cook’s helper. Cost me a fair bit to get him some fake papers and all, but he never thanked me for that. He got a nice tour of the world on that ship, sailed around Africa and all the way to Singapore, not one postcard from the ungrateful whelp.”

  “I think the term is called being ‘Shanghaied,’ as in put on a ship against one’s own will,” Bernadette said.

  “What’s the harm in that? He got taught a cook’s trade and saw a bit of the world, and might I add, he didn’t end up dead from a British army bullet. I say that’s a fair deal for any man.”

  Bernadette leaned back. “So, I’m supposed to believe this story, that you saved my father and sent him off to see the world, and he landed in Canada never once mentioning what you’d done for him?”

  Cahal managed a weak smile., “Does sound like he was ungrateful, doesn’t it now?”

  “No, it sounds like a fantastic tale. My father never once said he knew how to cook or showed us he could. He was a musician when my mother met him, he worked in bars when he wasn’t singing. He was also an alcoholic, did you know that?”

  Cahal nodded. “Aye, the Callahan’s have been known to suffer the sins of drink. I myself have been accused of such a thing. It doesn’t surprise me your father was a musician, your great Uncle William, well now, that man played a hell of a fiddle.”

  The door opened, Jenkins yelled time’s up, and stood there waiting for Bernadette to leave.

  Bernadette got up from the table and leaned forward so Jenkins couldn’t hear her. “I think you have a hell of a story Mr. Callahan, if that’s your real name. Whether you really are related to me remains to be seen. So far I’ve heard nothing that makes me believe it.”

  Cahal lowered his voice to a whisper. “But, you’ve got to get me out of here. I’m your blood, can’t you see it in my eyes? We’re kin. How can you not see that?”

  “Sorry, can’t help you there. I can’t be involved in your case. If you’re innocent, the courts will set you free.” Bernadette turned and walked past Jenkins without looking at him.

  When she hit the street, her face was burning so hot she hardly felt the cold. It took her a block before she put her gloves on. When she reached the detachment, she went to her desk and took out a piece of paper she’d made notes on when she looked at Cahal’s file.

  There was a phone number of Aideen Callahan in Ireland. She poised her hand over the telephone. She couldn’t believe she was sweating. She looked around; she felt like a kid in a candy store about to steal something. This was police time, not her personal business. But she was dying to know.

  She dialed the number of Aideen Callahan, the phone rang a long time before and old voice replied, “Hello. Callahan residence.”

  “Is this Aideen Callahan?”

  “Why yes, it is. How may I help you?”

  “I got your number from Cahal Callahan. My name is Bernadette Callahan.”

  “Oh my, so happy to hear your voice. I haven’t seen you since you were a baby,” Aideen replied.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever been to Ireland—you must be mistaken.”

  “Oh no, your da brought you over to see me before he took you to Canada. I have your picture right here,” Aideen said.

  “Where do you live?” Bernadette asked.

  “I’m in a little village called Kilmeague in County Kildare. I’ve lived here all my life, no other relatives around. I’m all alone here.”

  “Do you know that Cahal is in jail here in Canada?”

  “Oh, I did hear about it just yesterday in our local paper, and the parish priest came by to see me about it. A dreadful thing it is. Can you do something for him?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t. I’m an officer of the law and I cannot be involved if the person charged claims to be my relative.”

  “I see, but maybe you can help him somehow, my dear. You are his niece, after all. And he’s so far from home.”

  Bernadette looked up to see Evanston waving to get her attention. “I have to go now, my duties call. Perhaps we’ll talk again.”

  “That would be nice, my dear. It’s been far too long.”

  Evanston walked up to her. “We got a another ten thirty-eight at the seminary, and Durham told me you were up on this one. Sawchucks got some kind of dental thingy going on.”

  Callahan grabbed her badge and her gun from her desk. She followed Evanston to the hall where they put on their winter parkas and boots. A ten thirty-eight was code for a fatality.

  “Any idea on the victim?”

  “I didn’t say victim, I said body. Why do you think we got a murder?” Evanston asked.

  Bernadette closed her eyes and shook her head. “Damn it, I did say victim, didn’t I.” She paused for a moment. “No idea why I said that. Let’s get out there.”

  4

  The drive to the seminary was cold. They’d had to take a vehicle that had been parked outside overnight. The upho
lstered seats felt like blocks of ice. Bernadette wished she’d taken her own car with leather seats and seat warmers, a true luxury in Canada that no one should be without.

  Morning traffic was light as they headed out of town. They were both quiet until Evanston broke the silence.

  “So, what did your relative, Cahal, have to say for himself?”

  Bernadette looked over at Evanston. She couldn’t see her eyes with her sunglasses on, but she knew the look she’d be giving her.

  “How do you know I went to see him?”

  “Really?” Evanston asked, taking her eyes off the road for a second. She looked back at the road with a slight smile.

  Bernadette stared straight at the road. “Okay, I dropped in to see him, but as a civilian, you know, just to see if the guy had any family resemblance.”

  “And…?”

  Bernadette blew out a breath. “I have no idea. I phoned someone who claimed to be my aunt in Ireland, but I’m still not sure. This is so much better, going to see a body than talking to someone who claims to be part of your family.”

  Evanston chuckled. “Yeah, I hear you. I got several relatives on Frank’s side and mine I would like to trade in or trade up for something that approximates a reasonable human being. But in the great DNA shuffle you get what you get—know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. Which reminds me, I got to plan my wedding in the next few months. You know anything about that, as in inviting relatives and that sort of thing?” Bernadette asked.

  “Sure do. The relatives you invite will be pissed they have to attend because they have to spend money for presents and travel, the ones you don’t invite will be more pissed they didn’t get to come,” Evanston said.

  “Thanks, you’re a great help,” Bernadette said with a smile. She looked out over the frozen landscape. “You get much information on what we’re attending?”

  “Yeah, Stewart’s on the scene. They found one of the seminary’s residents swinging from a rafter in his room.”