'The Mountains Wild' Chapters 19 & 20

Sarah Stewart Taylor

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Published January 17, 2021

Illustration of front page of Irish Independent newspaper

ILLUSTRATION BY KATHERINE LAM

Chapter 19

Sunday, May 29, 2016

WHATEVER THEY FOUND DOWN in Wicklow has everyone excited. The news announcer doesn’t know what it is, but that doesn’t stop her from speculating. They’ve got shots of a cordoned-off area next to a narrow road, gardaí walking back and forth. I realize that Griz must have been standing not far from the spot when I called her.

They have a “former law enforcement professional” with an English accent piling on the speculation. He straightens his tie and looks sympathetically into the camera. “In these kinds of cases, you would be looking for clothing, perhaps a piece of physical evidence. It is entirely possible that they have found a piece of clothing with enough blood on it to indicate that Miss Horrigan has indeed met a violent end. It is also possible that they have located a piece of evidence that may lead them to Miss Horrigan’s abductor.”

The newscaster asks him why it would be kept confidential. “Well, if it is indeed a piece of evidence that could lead gardaí to the perpetrator, then they would want to keep that to themselves. It might be something that only the person who took Niamh would know about. It might be a way to test a confession. Or they may not want the person in question to know that they are on his trail.” The newscaster and the expert have an awkward little moment of silence where they both realize that their coverage means that the person in question definitely knows the police have found something.

Then the newscaster hands it over to a reporter in Wicklow, saying, “Aiofe Callahan, tell us about some new information we’re just getting about the location of this search.”

“Yes, Allison. The Gardaí hope that this development will help lead them to Niamh, who has now been missing for a week,” says the young reporter in a concerned voice. She’s standing close to the Wicklow Way trail marker. “We can report at this hour that the location where the item was found is very near to Drumkee and the former grave of Kevin Whelan, the Belfast teenager whose grave was identified by members of the Provisional IRA as part of the Good Friday peace agreement. As you know, Allison, Kevin was eighteen years old when he disappeared from his home in Armagh in 1981. There had been rumors in his community that he was an informant and his family assumed he’d been murdered. After the Good Friday Agreement, an IRA splinter group revealed the location of his grave, in a patch of boggy hillside in Drumkee, close to where Erin and now Niamh Horrigan were last seen. His remains were recovered and now the Gardaí wonder if there is any connection between Niamh’s disappearance and the dark history of this place.”

I scramble for my laptop and search for “Kevin Whelan” and “Drumkee.” There are quite a few stories, mostly archived reports from the late ’90s. As part of the Good Friday Agreement, which mostly brought the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland to an end, paramilitary groups on both sides of the conflict had to agree to put their arms beyond use. While some arms were buried in concrete or destroyed, others were illegally buried in secret locations, Wikipedia tells me, in case the violence started up again. The stories refer to anonymous sources that say it’s widely believed that arms were brought over the border and buried in multiple locations in the Republic. The stories don’t say it directly, but the implication seems to be that there are some arms caches in the Wicklow Mountains, in Drumkee, among other locations.

I call home to talk to Lilly but she doesn’t answer her cell phone, and when I call the landline Brian tells me that she’s gone out to Montauk for the day with her friend Cory’s family. “She doing okay?” I ask him.

“Yeah, she’s doing great. How are things there?”

I go to the window and look out at the street. It’s quiet, late on Sunday. I remember this about Ireland, how quiet Sundays can be in public spaces. I wonder suddenly what Conor Kearney is doing right now. “They’re no closer to finding Erin, and Roly has me completely sidelined,” I say. “I mean, I know he has to, but I’m just sitting in this hotel room. They found something today, something belonging to the girl who’s missing. Niamh. I could help them but I have no idea what it is and they won’t even tell me anything.” I’m unloading my frustration on him and I feel bad about it. “I’m sorry, Brian.”

“No, it sounds awful.”

“How’s Danny?”

“Okay. You know. Lilly went over and took him some brownies she made last night. He’s just ... waiting. The bar’s been busy, so that’s good.”

“And ... everything else is okay?”

I don’t want to have to say it and blessedly he picks up on my meaning. “Yeah, yeah. Nothing strange. I’ve been setting the alarm. Don’t worry, Mags. There’s nothing to worry about.”

I feel relief stream down toward my legs. “Okay. I’m going to go out and find some dinner.” I tell him to give Lilly a big hug and to tell her to call me when she can.

***

I’m heading out of my hotel room, my bag slung over my shoulder, my key in my hand, when a man waiting in the hallway surprises me, clearing his throat and smiling sympathetically when I jump and whirl around.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a fright. I just thought I could see if you were here.”

It’s the reporter with the ponytail from the other day. In the dim hallway he seems freakishly large, his shoulders twice the width of me, his legs thick under his suit pants. His forehead is dotted with beads of moisture and I take in his sharp sweaty smell from two feet away. He’s older than I thought, closer to my age.

“Stephen Hines?” he says. “We met the other day.”

“How did you know where my room was?” I ask. I’m still holding my key in my hand and I point the sharp edge of it out.

“I didn’t. I’ve been trying every floor.” He shrugs and smiles. “I got very lucky.”

“It’s creepy,” I tell him. “Please don’t do it again.”

He says, “Look, I’m sorry to bother you, but I just want to get your sense of the investigation. You’re not just a family member, you’re a highly skilled homicide detective, with apparent expertise in serial murder. What do you think about this find in Drumkee?”

“My sense is that the Garda Síochána is doing an excellent job,” I say. I put my room key into my bag and zip up my jacket.

But he’s still standing there, his body a barrier between me and the elevator. “A number of people have mentioned to me that they’re not sure why the Guards aren’t using you more, using your expertise. Would you like to be more involved in the investigation, Detective D’arcy?”

I look up at him. “The Guards are doing an excellent job,” I say. “I have a lot of confidence in them.”

“Have you been told that Niamh’s family wants to meet you?”

Now I’m interested. “Are you making that up?”

“No, no,” he says. “I wouldn’t make up something like that. They want to talk to you. They want to meet you. Why are the Guards keeping that from you?”

I watch him for a moment. He’s got an angle, but maybe I do, too. “Okay, what’s your theory?” I ask him. “You seem to really want to talk to me. What’s your theory on my cousin? On Niamh?”

He smiles kindly, a favorite college professor getting ready to answer a question. “I was just starting out when your cousin went missing,” he says. “They had me writing stories about cattle auctions and traffic. I’ve only read my colleagues’ stories in the archives. But I think whoever took your cousin never stopped taking women and I think he took Niamh Horrigan and I think whoever it is there in the trees at Glenmalure was taken by him, too. Don’t you want to help find him? It must be driving you mad, with all your expertise. I mean, you bested the fecking FBI.”

“Is that what you told the Horrigans?” I ask him.

He only appears a little embarrassed.

“I’m just looking for some information,” he says. “I’m a journalist. This is quite a confusing situation, as you know. My editor, like, he thinks I’m not working hard enough on this.”

I feel the rage build up inside me. “Don’t do that. I know who you are. Are you kidding me? Do you know how many hours I’ve spent reading every single article about this case? I’ve read everything you’ve ever written, Stephen P. Hines, for the Independent. You’re a good reporter, you’re a dogged reporter. You’re obsessed with these cases. I can tell. So don’t pretend you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“All right,” he says. He’s smiling. This is just what he wanted. “Thanks for that. Really, very flattering. I can show my appreciation by giving you a little scoop. It’s not public. They’re just about to arrest some guy down in Wicklow.”

Everything stops for a minute. I can hear a low buzzing coming from the emergency exit light on the wall.

“Who?” I want to shake him and demand he tell me what he knows. Everything narrows down to his face, the dim hallway. Suddenly, I realize what he’s saying, what he’s doing. I take a deep breath. “I would be happy to meet with the Horrigans,” I tell him. “Of course I would. And I would be happy to aid the investigation in any way I can. But it’s delicate. I’m a civilian when I’m here.” I keep laying it on. “They would have to believe that the Horrigans really want me involved. The Horrigans would have to demand that I help with the profiling, really. Perhaps they might threaten to go to the press if I didn’t. I’d need access to a lot of case files and interviews. That’s not strictly legal. And it would have to be very clear that they were asking for this. That it’s not me who’s trying to get in on this.”

Stephen Hines smiles angelically and spreads his hands at his sides.

“I think we all just want to find Niamh safe and sound,” he says. “I think that’s what we all want. I’m sure someone will be in touch, Detective D’arcy.”

I stand there, breathless, for a few minutes after he walks away.

I’ve just played the only card I have.

I’m sorry, Roly.

I don’t feel nearly as guilty as I should.

Chapter 20

1993

I caught up to Byrne and McNeely outside the Irishtown Garda Station that next morning to tell them about Erin and Niall from Arklow.

October 8. She had been missing for three weeks.

They didn’t look happy to see me but they stopped and listened to me while I told them about the men at the Raven.

Byrne looked up at the sky for a minute, then pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. “That’s interesting. He really said that?”

“Yeah. What does that mean? I know it’s for Provisional IRA, but I don’t really get it. Do they dress a particular way or something?”

“Well, it might mean that your man from the bar is a prejudiced git and he thinks anyone with a northern accent is a terrorist, but it also might mean that they’re actually Provos. He’s right. There’s a sorta look, an energy. Can’t really explain it.”

Bernie sighed but didn’t say anything.

I said, “The town where Erin and I grew up on Long Island? It’s a regular suburb, but it’s Long Island, and there are a few Mafia guys living there. They don’t come into the bar a lot — I guess ’cause it’s an Irish bar — but I always know when they do, even if I’ve never seen them before. Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah, I guess it is. Were they real Mafia guys? Like The Godfather? That sorta thing?”

“Yeah. They had these shirts they always wore. Silk. I’ve never seen any other man wear a shirt like that.”

He grinned. “‘I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse,’ ” he said, in what was supposed to be The Godfather but didn’t quite hit the mark.

Bernie rolled her eyes.

“You sound more like Vincent Connelly than Vito Corleone,” I said.

Roly and I grinned at each other. “Very funny,” he said. Foony.

“So what are you going to do?” I asked. He glanced at Bernie. “We’re going to go down to the Westbury Hotel and we’re going to try to figure out who they were.”

“Can I come with you?”

“How did I know you were going to ask me that? No, you can’t.” McNeely said, “I understand that you’re worried about your cousin, but you going off and pretending to be an amateur detective isn’t going to help us find her, and it’s likely to hurt, if you want to know the truth.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. I went in there and I could tell he recognized me. I figured he might know something and thought I should ask him. If you’d gone in there he wouldn’t have told you.”

“Fair enough,” she said. She studied me for a couple of seconds. We stood there for a moment in awkward silence and then I asked McNeely, “Are you from Northern Ireland?”

Something crossed her face, annoyance maybe, and she said, “That’s right. I was raised in Armagh.”

“That must have been intense, growing up there,” I said, then immediately felt stupid when I saw her face.

“Ah, yeah, ‘intense’ is one word for it,” she said, then studied me for a long moment before she said, “Well, we’d better leg it, Roly.”

“We’ll let you know if there’s anything,” he said.

I’d already turned around and was walking back down Charlemont Place when he called out, “Miss D’arcy!” and I stopped and turned around to find him jogging after me.

He stopped when he got to me and said, a little out of breath, “Let me ask ya something. She may or may not have come back to Dublin. She may or may not have known those fellas at the pub. I don’t know what to think about this thing. Where do you think she is?”

I watched a couple walking by the canal. “When we were little, she used to run away all the time. She didn’t do it to be cruel or to make people worry. She just ... ran. But she always came back.” There was a long silence. “Or I could always find her,” I added.

Byrne didn’t say anything and I kept talking. “I think something happened to her. If she came back to take a bus, it was because she was going to meet someone. And that someone knows where she is.”

“Okay.” He looked tired all of a sudden and I didn’t believe him when he said, “Don’t worry too much about Detective McNeely. She just doesn’t like Americans much.”

“Why?”

“That,” he said, with a little grin that wasn’t really a grin, “is a long story for another day.”

***

I got back to the house just as Emer and Daisy were leaving for classes. They’d bought the Irish Independent and I asked if I could read it.

“’Course. I’m finished with it,” Daisy told me, drinking a cup of tea while Emer packed up her books. “Actually, do you know, I was reading it and I think I remembered the name of your man who rang for Erin. The sort o’ American-sounding one. It was that story that made me think of it. I can’t believe I forgot it, actually.”

“Really?”

“Hacky O’Hanrahan.” She said it in a funny voice.

“What?” We both laughed. “It sounds like a cartoon character.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have remembered but there’s a story about a fella named Hackman O’Hanrahan Sr. in the paper today and I thought, that was the same name as the one who called.” She picked up the paper, turned it to an inside page, and handed it over.

IAI Chief O’Hanrahan Seeks Investors for New Sectors Fund

The Irish American banker Hackman O’Hanrahan Sr. announced today a new fund for investors in new sectors in the Republic. O’Hanrahan, a former director of Allied Irish Banks and the Green Island Fund, calls the new fund a rare opportunity for the manufacturing and computer sector ...

“I’d say your man is his son,” Emer said.

“That makes sense. That would make sense, right? If his father’s been over here doing business, his accent might be a bit funny. And he could be a Trinity student, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, with a look I couldn’t quite read. “There are loads of Americans at Trinity.”

After they’d gone, I reread the story and paced around the house a bit, thinking. If Erin had been seeing this Hacky O’Hanrahan guy, he might know something about where she was and he might be able to tell us about her state of mind. He might know where she went when she left the bed-and-breakfast.

I was just about to leave the house when the phone rang.

“Maggie?” I didn’t recognize the voice but she said, “It’s Jess. Jess Friedman. My mom said you were trying to get in touch with us about Erin.” I can hear the emotion in her voice. “I’m with Lisa and Chris and Brian. We’re in Madrid at a youth hostel and my phone card might run out but she said you wanted to know when’s the last time we saw Erin. It was when we left Dublin in August.”

“So she didn’t come over to travel with you or anything?”

“No,” she said. “Is she okay? What’s going on?”

I told her the basics. “The last place she was seen was at this bed-and-breakfast. She didn’t tell you about a boyfriend or anything or any travel plans, did she? How long did you guys stay with her?”

“Three nights,” Jess said. “We flew into Dublin and stayed with her for, yeah, three nights, then took the ferry over to London and then Lisa and I met up with Stacy and we went over to France and started Eurailing. Brian was in London with college friends. Chris visited his family in Ireland then went over to London. And then they came over to Paris and met us.”

“How did Erin seem?”

“I guess good,” Jessica said. “Like she liked it there. She was ... I don’t know. Different but happy.”

“What do you mean different?”

“She was just ... She kept trying to talk about like, the news. There was some riot or something. She wanted to talk about it, but I didn’t really know anything about it. Here’s Chris.”

Chris Fallon was one of Erin’s friends, too. “It’s Chris. Yeah, she seemed pretty happy. What did you think, Bri?”

I heard Brian Lombardi’s voice say, “Yeah, she seemed good. You know Erin.” His voice called up his face. I’d had a huge crush on Brian in high school. He and his older brother, Frank, had both been popular, good-looking, and talented athletes.

Jessica got back on and said, “Well, yeah. The last night, though. She ... we went out. We had a lot to drink. And then she took us to this, like, club. We were all dancing and having so much fun. It was weird, you could only order, like, red wine. And then she just disappeared. We were ready to go home and we couldn’t find her. We searched for like an hour. We didn’t know what to do so we figured out how to get back to her house and we had to knock on the door and wake up her roommates. Chris was really pissed.”

“So what happened? Did she come back the next day?”

“Yeah. She came in and said she’d been to mass. It was weird. We were already up because we had to catch the ferry.”

“Mass?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she say she’d started going regularly?”

“No, but she said something about Father Anthony. You know, just that she still couldn’t believe he was gone, that she really missed him. Anyway, she said she was sorry, she was really drunk and whatever, but she didn’t say who she’d been with.” I heard a beeping over the line. “Shit, Maggie, the card’s about to run out. I’ll try to—”

The phone cut out and I stood there for a moment listening to the silence coming across the line.

-----------------------------------------------

Erin has her Holy Communion first, when she’s in second grade.

My mom gets her a white lacy dress with puffy sleeves and a white ribbon around the waist. She looks like a bride and I’m so jealous I think about spilling paint on the dress so she can’t wear it.

I sit in the church next to my parents and watch Erin go up to kneel for the first time and take the wafer from Father Patrick. Father Anthony stands nearby and smiles at us. I feel guilty, thinking about how I wanted to spill paint on the dress, and I’m glad I don’t have to confess, for I know that Father Anthony won’t like me if I tell him how I feel.

I watch Erin as she goes, Jessica behind her. When she kneels, she turns her face up to Father Patrick and the sun shining in through the windows covers her in golden light. She smiles and she looks happier than I’ve ever seen her, as though she’s smiling at Jesus. Later, I hear her tell Father Anthony that she felt Jesus there next to her, that she felt his presence, heard him telling her what to do.

When I make my communion a year later, the lace dress is scratchy against my neck and the wafer makes my mouth feel funny. I wait to hear Jesus’s voice, but he never speaks to me.

'The Mountains Wild' main page | Next: Chapters 21 & 22

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