Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (24 page)

• 48 •

Our Lady of the Kilmoon nestled in her pasture with the Celtic standing stone her guardian. She extended her shadow over grave markers and minded her business in the genteel way of a bustled and high-bosomed matriarch of old, fanning herself with the breeze, dabbing herself with sea-scented rain. She neither turned away nor embraced visitors who passed over her threshold. When they departed, as they usually did, the fecund remains of the dead became hers to brood over once again.

Scudding clouds eclipsed the sun, and their shadows passed over Kilmoon like distress sullying an otherwise placid expression. Or so Kevin thought as he perched on a low stone ledge that formed part of Our Lady’s inner wall. The red glow within his closed eyelids faded then brightened then faded with cloud movement. Though sad for all that had gone wrong, he also felt at peace with his decision and the rough emotional waves to come as a result. It couldn’t be helped, change was change, and he’d done his best to avoid it for the past thirty-seven years.

He opened his eyes to the small wilderness Our Lady clutched to her bosom. The engravings upon the grave markers benefited from her shelter, and Kevin easily read the names and dates of those who’d died after the church grounds fell out of use for everything but burial services. Chattering wheatears darted from their roosts in the walls, calling to one another with staccato chirps. Human murmurs rose over the walls causing a flurry of twitters and sudden flights into nooks and crannies. Americans, by the sound, and a few moments after Kevin made out their accents, their faces appeared in one of the windows.

“How quaint,” said the woman. “Oh, hi there, are we bothering you?”

The couple stooped hand-in-hand through a narrow doorway that marked the front of the church. They sported identical outfits that consisted of hiking boots, khaki walking shorts, and fleece pullovers. Kevin suppressed a groan. Liam had matched them. The fledgling pairs always looked as if he had injected them with a happiness elixir that caused their skin to glow.

The woman pulled the man along with her toward Kevin. “We couldn’t help but stop. This is such a great site.”

“So it is,” Kevin said.

“I bet you hate tourists busting in on your quiet spots.”

In truth, these refugees from an outdoor clothing catalog were a fine distraction. It was almost divine the way this reminder of Liam’s good works displayed itself for Kevin’s bittersweet perusal.

“We’re here for the festival. I guess that’s pretty obvious.” The woman’s laugh flew over the walls. “The matchmaker brought us together last night at the Pied Pig Pub. He’s great. I really love him.”

Ridiculous woman to speak of love as if she’d popped off her catalog photo and straight into a bad movie. A robin landed on a windowsill and puffed out its red breast. One of Liam’s favorite birds—a symbol for new beginnings. Kevin leaned back and closed his eyes. The couple gushed on for a few minutes before departing. Birdsong and grass rustles took over once again, and sometime later—he couldn’t be sure, perhaps he’d dozed—a shadow less transient than a cloud darkened his inner sky.

Emma stood before him in white trainers and one of her vintage dresses. She pointed toward a cat that had slunk out from behind one of the grave markers. “He’s frightfully thin, poor thing. Not much of a hunter.”

Her voice shook as if a cog that connected her vocal cords to her tear ducts had loosened. He didn’t comment on this or the bruised skin beneath her eyes or her twitching eyelid. On some level, he still knew her. He could have predicted that she’d drop to the ground and with slow movements pull a sandwich out of the picnic basket she’d brought with her. The scrawny tabby inched forward with tail high. Emma clicked low in her throat and tore turkey bits out of the sandwich.

Kevin found himself staring at the back of Emma’s neck. He’d never noticed the purplish birthmark just below her hairline or the way the vertebrae stuck out like fragile possibilities. He blamed himself for her current condition, of course he did, and he accepted that he always would.

A few moments later the cat was wolfing down turkey and almost choking over its purrs. “His tag says
Burt
,” Emma said. “Someone loved him once.” She picked up the cat and turkey and sat next to Kevin. She settled the cat on the ledge beside her. Her elbow brushed Kevin’s arm as she leaned over to pull out another sandwich. “Would Liam take on a cat?”

“How many do you have now?”

“Three.”

Kevin bit into the sandwich she handed him. Roast beef. The cat started to nose over Emma’s lap. Kevin relinquished half the beef, and the cat settled back into purring gobbles. Liam with a cat. Might be just the thing.

Emma handed him a cranberry-apple juice, his favorite, and he made much of opening it and drinking, unsure what to say now that the moment was upon him. “I think he’d accept a cat. But you will have to deliver it to Liam yourself.”

Emma rolled the cat up into her arms and flipped him over for a look between his legs. She handled him with confidence, but Burt arched his back in an effort to return to his lunch. She set him down. “Burt is a girl. I’m sure the poor mite will need a de-worming and flea bath. I have a cat-care booklet I can give Liam, though I’m sure he’s owned a cat or two in his life.” She turned away from petting Burt. Her gaze held a thousand unsaids. “Hasn’t he?”

Kevin almost laughed. Given what he now knew about Liam, a simple fact about pet ownership seemed ridiculous by comparison. “No worries, he’ll take good care of any cat you gift him.”

“You’re in on this too.”

He reached over Emma, inhaling the scent of jasmine, and scratched under the cat’s ears. “You tell him I was with you when you found Burtene. He’ll understand.”

Kevin finished his sandwich, savoring the horseradish that Emma mixed into the mustard. He could never get enough of her sandwiches.

“Kev.” She placed fingers on his wrist. “What about me?”

Kevin cursed timing and circumstance. If he’d been ready for her last year none of this would have happened. None. He couldn’t say what he suspected was the truth. They’d likely never be together again. He’d allowed himself to hope, but now he must put an end to that also.

Tears dripped down Emma’s cheeks. She delved into the basket and pulled out home-baked chocolate biscuits. They chewed for a while, while the cat lounged in a contented sprawl and washed her face with dainty paw swipes. The sun settled itself atop a wall, and the chill started as it slid out of view.

“What about Liam?” she said.

“I’m sure Merrit Chase will look after him.”

“Oh, her.” Emma leaned into him, then caught herself and pulled away. “What about money?”

“I’ve enough saved up, and I can land construction or wood work anywhere.” A small surge of freedom startled him. He thought about the notebook filled with Julia Chase’s erratic entries, and her descriptions of her future husband, Andrew. “And I suspect that Merrit has money should Liam need help.”

“What about your business?”

“A fellow contractor has been giving me hassle to join our businesses together. He’ll take over my projects and my men, and we’ll see how he makes out.”

“Does Liam know?”

“He will soon enough.”

“You have all the answers,” she said.

Now Kevin did laugh.

Kilmoon was well into shadow when they split ways. Emma placed Burtene in the picnic basket with tears trailing her cheeks. Her eyes skittered, never landing on him. “I hope it will be OK for you.”

Still polite, even now. “And I hope it will be OK for you too.”

Only after her Volkswagen chugged out of auditory range and bird calls quieted for the night did Kevin gather up their rubbish. A moist chill off the Atlantic had descended, crisp and clean. Autumn in the air, season for change, this September in particular.

He turned back for a last look at the church. Limestone glowed in pinks, and the secrets Our Lady shared with Liam remained safe. He bowed to her in goodbye. The banking sun slid into a thick wall of clouds on the horizon, and Our Lady bowed back behind a descending curtain of nightfall.

On the lane in front of the church, Kevin patted his truck canopy and gazed in the side window at his neatly packed belongings that included the wood turning table and Liam’s cast. Goodbye, Mistress Kilmoon.

Liam Donellan’s journal

Back then, I couldn’t help thinking that Kilmoon Church at night exuded an unquiet air quite different from daylight hours. I fancied spirits cavorting through the grasses and whispers light as rustling leaves following me as I wound through the grave markers. Unfortunately, these days the spirit whispers have felt too real so I haven’t returned except by day. And now these hours are ruined too. Perhaps I fear what the age-old rocks could say about my old-age bones . . .

That last evening with Adrienne, the church walls looked porous indeed. Solid yet not, all but crumbling in the damp. Weathered and crackled old limestone still to last longer than I, longer than Adrienne, and, now, these many years later, longer than Kate.

• 49 •

Merrit hissed in frustration and ducked into the bowels of the kitchen cabinetry. She almost missed the front door’s wheeze and indecipherable grumbles from the living room where Liam rested on his easy chair. A moment later Danny entered the kitchen, opened the dishwasher, and pulled out a clean pot. “Extra storage. They hand wash.”

Taking over, he littered the counter with sandwich makings and got the canned soup going. Merrit retreated like the awkward outsider she was. Stretching for a conversational opener, she mentioned that she’d seen Ivan that afternoon, and that he was just as stressed as ever.

Danny continued slicing the Swiss cheese. “That’s because he knows that I know he lied about overhearing an argument between Lonnie and Kate. He’s still too slippery for my liking.” The knife bit into the chopping board with a decided thump. “Telephone records are a wonderful thing.”

Of course, telephone records. Much good arguing with Lonnie had done Merrit anyhow.

Danny left to fetch Liam while Merrit poured soup into bowls and finished the sandwiches. When they returned, Liam slipped past Danny to peer out the window toward Kevin’s unlit studio. When he turned around a frown line bisected the skin between his eyebrows.

The men sat down. Still standing, Merrit bit into ham and cheese on wheat bread, and managed to swallow.

Danny stirred his soup restlessly. “I need to ask some questions. Then you two can return to where you left off last night.”

“As you wish, Danny-boy, as you wish,” Liam said.

“Why did you cut off Lonnie’s braid?”

Good question, Merrit thought.

“A pair of scissors were in the desk,” Liam said. “I held them through the afghan and snipped, that’s all. I also scattered the money about the room. Only an ass would take the braid but not the cash.” He sipped a spoonful of soup. “Kate was surprised to see Marcus enter Internet Café the night of the party and even more surprised to see him turn into me when I discarded the afghan afterward. I was sorry to do that, by the way, but I’d gotten blood on it.”

“You thought it all out,” Danny said.

“If you only knew how wrong you are. For example, my shoes. What to do with them? I had to tuck them into my waistband, which was awkward at best. And then on the return trip from Lonnie’s shop, anyone could have noticed that I suddenly gained a stone in the gut because I needed a place to store
Marcus’s
shoes after I set aside the afghan. I regretted borrowing Marcus’s shoes, but the afghan was too short. That Kate, prowling as usual, of course she noticed it all. And of course she legged it into the café to see what I’d been up to. Even
I
said a prayer over Lonnie’s body, but I’ll wager she danced a jig knowing she had yet more to use against me, not to mention a perfect opportunity to complicate Merrit’s life with an inhaler she’d stolen out of Merrit’s purse that very day.” He nodded at Merrit. “Eh?”

“Yes, at the tea house while I was in the bathroom,” she said. “How did you know?”

“We talked.” He stirred his soup and let the spoon clank against the bowl. “Just before she died.”

Merrit swallowed another bite of sandwich. It felt like sandpaper sliding down her throat. Kate and her, they weren’t so different, both of them daughters with broken childhoods, daughters who had followed their mothers’ footsteps in search of something from Liam. She pushed the soup and sandwich away, sick with the realization that despite her best efforts, she had never come to terms with her desire for a sense of place missing since her mom’s death, a true home.

But she could salvage something. Maybe. If Kevin let her. If Liam stayed out of jail.

“I’m not hungry either.” Liam arched his back with a grunt. “Kate wanted me all to herself.”

“Why?” Danny said.

“Because I owed her, of course. She told me quite the tale about her adoptive family. Seems Kate’s younger sister, the miracle birth child, had severe asthma. Kate sat through many a doctor’s appointment while her sister was tested. She even learned the name of the drug used—something starting with
M
.”

“Methcholine,” Merrit said.

She told them about Kate’s visit to the hospital, where she confessed to the not-quite-sleeping Merrit that she’d stolen two inhalers, not one, out of Merrit’s purse, and latched onto the idea of using Methcholine to screw with Merrit. “I didn’t notice that the new inhaler was an Irish model. Since the placebos don’t have labels, they look the same to me. She wanted to give me a scare, but I don’t think she’d have minded if I’d died.”

“Probably not,” Liam said. “Kate told me she had a medical contact through her website design work. Apparently, she was quite good despite specializing in websites for the kinky set. I didn’t ask how she coaxed a doctor out of a test inhaler.” He grimaced. “I’m certain of her persuasiveness. In that, she was like me in my youth. She went on down to Limerick to pick up a new inhaler and later slipped it into your purse by way of one of our local lads.”

A phantom ache reminded Merrit of the teenager who had practically broken her big toe when he bumped into her.

“What else did Kate tell you?” Danny asked Liam.

“She was the one to plant the afghan in Mrs. Sheedy’s rubbish bin, also to implicate Merrit. You want to know how?”

This was crazy. Beyond crazy. The way Liam circled around the Kate topic without landing on her death. Yet, Merrit couldn’t help nodding like a child before a storyteller.

“If you tilt the bin on edge and pull the chain so that it tightens against one side of the lid and loosens on the other—you need to be quite strong, obviously—you can lift the lid on the loose side. Kate had seen a few of the pub workers do it to mess about with Mrs. Sheedy.”

Merrit didn’t care about the garbage can. It was beside the point, a sideshow to the main event. She opened her mouth and closed it again, taking her cue from Danny, who merely stared off into space as if he were listening to a dull radio program. Silence reigned for a full minute.

“Our Lady of the Kilmoon.” Liam repeated the words three times, each time in a softer voice. “She had her own designs. First the mother, then the daughter. Our Lady misses protecting families within her boundaries. She wanted the Meehans.”

“Liam,” Danny said.

“I’d like tea.”

More silence as Danny prepared tea and heated up scones. “Here,” he said a few minutes later. And then, “Your cane left a perfect circle of a bruise on Kate’s chest.”

Liam spoke with a hazy tone. “This time around, I thought to help Our Lady, yes.”

“You—what?” Merrit said.

“She wasn’t about to send a falling rock to my rescue, so I felled Kate toward her. It helped that Kate had a sprained ankle. I’d seen her limping around. That’s how I got the idea. I suggested we meet so we could talk things out, and what better place than Kilmoon? Fitting, I thought.”

Merrit leaned against the counter, her lungs beginning to cramp. “It was a defensive push. Tell me her death was an accident like her mother’s.”

Liam cut his scone in half and layered each half with red currant jam. Danny yanked out scone innards while muttering “Jesus oh Jesus fucking hell” under his breath.

“You pushed her with the cane, that’s all,” she tried again. “I saw her. Her shoe heel broke. She tripped. How were you to know she’d fall against a gravestone?”

“Providence looked out for me, but it was a decided aim. I had to wait her out though.” Remorse entered Liam’s voice. “She didn’t die immediately. She looked so much like her mother. I talked to her, you know. I explained my actions, and I thought I heard her say I was probably right.”

“Right about what?” Merrit asked.

“My instincts, which I know to be right anyhow.”

Danny had by now buried his face in his hands. “Jesus, Liam, you make it sound like Kate was a sacrificial lamb.”

“In a way, she was.”

Danny raised his head with a wild stare. “For what? Tell me, sacrificed for what?”

“For the life I want to leave behind. I’m nonnegotiable when it comes to that, and when it comes to Kevin’s well-being.”

“You planted Lonnie’s braid on her,” Danny said.

“Poetic, I thought. Leave the braid in the same vein she left the inhaler at Lonnie’s crime scene. We like to spread the blame around, don’t we? I wanted Lonnie’s case closed with no further investigation, so I did what I could in that regard, including breaking off one of Kate’s heels so her death appeared accidental.”

Danny groaned.

“I need to know why,” Merrit said. “All to protect Kevin from your past?”

“Not all, no. Part of my motivation will become clear to you later with perspective and a little knowledge I’m unwilling to divulge at the moment.”

Merrit breathed into her hands. Even when he told the truth, Liam didn’t tell the whole truth. What the hell, ultimately, was he trying to accomplish?

Liam squinted toward the window. “Where is that Kevin? It’s not like him not to call.”