Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (25 page)

• 50 •

Kevin drove toward the westernmost end of Connemara, land of shaggy ponies, lonely valleys, and pale mountains. A faint purple smudge of day’s end colored the horizon, and his high beams spotlighted bumpy asphalt right before it passed under his tires. He sped up and felt the road stretch its miles out behind him, ever lengthening the distance between the known and the unknown.

On a hilly rise he caught the lights of Clare across Galway Bay. Lisfenora lay beyond a bend of coast, south, its glow hidden by a craggy shoreline and limestone plateaus. Too fast, the narrow coast road folded back on itself and Clare blinked out, leaving Kevin to his nomadic journey. And maybe even to his outlaw journey if the Garda decided they wanted him for breaking and entering. The thought thrilled him even as nerves sent his fingers rat-a-tatting against the steering wheel. Liam must be worrying by now.

He’d left Lisfenora with Emma’s pain a lip gloss smear across his cheek. Now orphanage memories hovered like specters. The rustling wool, flickering candles, and echoing sorrow within a hall that led to rooms with crayon art on the walls. The area earmarked for the children had smelled like wood shavings from sharpened pencils and chalk dust flurries caught in sunshine. But Kevin still couldn’t picture the couple who had almost adopted him. Of them he felt only a yearning for something lost. Now he knew that they’d adopted Kate instead.

Father Dooley’s haunting question also remained close at hand: what scares you so? The answer hid within another orphanage moment. Kevin had stared up at a giant man with hair on fire and a white thing on his arm. He’d almost hid behind Sister Ignatius rather than risk venturing close to this stranger with sad eyes. He hadn’t trusted his good luck, had lost faith that he wouldn’t be traded in for a better model.

A better model. Kevin dropped a hand to the envelope that sat on the passenger seat. He held it pressed against the steering wheel with his thumbs and considered the name penned across the front.
Merrit
. He turned it over. His repeated tinkering had loosened the flap. He slipped his finger under the flap, ripping it open a little more, and tossed the letter aside once again. Not yet. He still wasn’t ready to read the truths Liam had selected for her.

***

The clank of newly formed ice cubes startled Merrit. The refrigerator hummed, and a few more ice cubes fell out of the ice maker. The discordant sound seemed fitting somehow. Liam had excused himself to change for that evening’s pub event, leaving Merrit and Danny to sit in silence. Danny still stared off into space. He eased a crumbled mess of scone into his mouth and chewed. Slowly. He looked like he was about to vomit, but he swallowed.

“Liam didn’t seem so guilty until now,” Merrit said. “Would you agree with that statement?”

“Tell me how that flight of fancy works.”

“Adrienne Meehan’s death was an accident, and Liam showed poor—rather, selfish—judgment in covering it up, but OK, let’s grant him immunity because that was over thirty years ago and he was torn up with love over my mom.”

“And Lonnie?”

“Seeing Lonnie at the party with me brought up all of Liam’s old feelings of impotency because of Andrew, and I personally think he snapped a little, the past and present coming together that way.”

“His defense would be what—mental impairment?” Danny didn’t sound convinced. “OK, let’s grant him immunity again.”

“Then there’s Kate.”

“Yes, Kate.”

“So what do we do?” she asked.

“There’s no
we
. There’s only me and—fucking hell—I can’t let it go.”

Liam reappeared resplendent as ever in his velvet jacket. “There’s something to be said for reaching the end of a life. When you’re down to congratulating yourself for waking up at all, what becomes important is how you leave your legacy. I’ve always preferred having my way, and Kate was fast becoming the sore spot on what I’d otherwise imagined as a peaceful tumble toward death. She’d have instigated a mess of a controversy with the festival and with you, Merrit. And I’ll not have Kevin despising me at my bedside either.”

He stood there, leaning against the door with fortitude squaring his shoulders and acceptance clearing his gaze of self-pity. No more revelations, Merrit pleaded silently.

“Lung cancer,” Liam said, “and I’ve refused treatment. I smoked for years and that coupled with mixing it up in smoky pubs took its toll.”

“No!” Merrit said. “You can’t do that. That’s not supposed to happen.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth just in time to stop a sob from shaking itself free. Liam gentled the same smile at her that he bestowed on his petitioners. His expression said everything, and in that moment she understood the secret to his matchmaking success. He exuded compassion and love—could it be love?—yes, love of humanity in general, an acceptance of foibles and weaknesses in their myriad forms, and an innate awareness of those before him. She’d heard it said that he was charmed, and now she believed it. This man of immense paradox disoriented her, one moment nonchalantly describing Kate’s death and the next saying to her, “You’re stronger than you know, Merrit. I’d stake my peace on that. Andrew, me, who are we to the person you’re becoming? We’re nobodies. I know Julia would be proud to see you now.”

Merrit ground her hands into her eyes but couldn’t stem the tears. Charmed indeed, saying the one thing that would undo her. Cutting to the crux of her longing. And now, after Liam dies, there’d be no one around to be proud of her.

Merrit knelt on the floor, scrabbling for the purse she’d flung aside when she’d set about preparing dinner. Inside, her inhaler waited. She’d thought she was getting better, but her body had something else to say about it. Don’t forget me, it said. You’ve got a ways to go yet, it said. Merrit pulled out the inhaler, gasping, sobbing, and inhaled a spray of the odious nothingness. Another squirt, and her panic subsided to a manageable level.

“I’m sorry you’re ill,” Danny was saying. “Have you gone in for a second opinion?”

“No need,” Liam said. “It’s the end of a long life.”

Merrit caught her breath and wiped tears off her cheeks. Though Liam relied on the cane, though she’d caught him pinching his lips as if battling an internal demon, he didn’t look sickly. She recalled Andrew and how for the longest time he managed to elude the appearance of illness even while the malignant feeding frenzy spread from his liver. Surely she could talk Liam into chemotherapy.

“Kevin was right all along when he complained that you weren’t up for the festival this year,” Danny said.

Liam’s gaze flickered toward the darkened studio. “Until the balance goes the other way I will proceed as usual.” He pulled on a gold watch fob and checked the time. “Let’s give Kevin a few more minutes, then I’ll drive myself. Don’t worry yourselves over me.”

“I can take you,” Merrit said.

“No need for that. I humor Kevin his worries, but how do you think I’ve been to doctors and back?”

Danny
hmm
’ed under his breath, and Merrit knew he left unsaid other recent excursions. To Kilmoon Church. To Internet Café.

“I’ll have to drive you into the village,” Danny said.

If Liam heard the sorrow in Danny’s voice, he didn’t let on. “Never mind that, I have something to show you. A final bad deed on my part.”

“Please, no more,” Merrit said.

“This is nothing by comparison, a mere blip.”

They followed Liam into the living room. This couldn’t be happening, Merrit thought. It couldn’t. Here she was, finally receiving answers, and Liam was about to be hauled off to the Garda station. Worst of all, he was dying. Which changed everything. Now he really couldn’t go to prison. Not if she could help it.

After fetching a key from under his easy-chair cushion, Liam led the way down a hallway lined with bedrooms. “I’ll be bedridden soon enough and best to have a new activity to keep me occupied. Danny, don’t you piss yourself dry.”

Liam pushed open a door with a flourish. Merrit saw nothing unusual about the room. An impressive hardcover book collection with not a lurid cover jacket in sight drew her gaze first. It took her a moment to realize that Danny had gestured toward the desk with a muttered
bloody hell
. Liam entered ahead of them and picked up a journal that had been lying on top of a laptop computer. He flipped through the pages until an envelope landed on the floor. Merrit recognized her mom’s creamy stationery with Andrew’s hateful letter tucked inside.

Liam hugged the journal to his chest and sagged onto the desk chair. “He’s gone.”

Two steps and Danny was stooped beside him. Merrit remained in the doorway, frightened by Liam’s sudden pallor. She found herself staring at what had to be Kate’s laptop while Danny spoke to Liam in a reassuring undertone, his role as Garda officer forgotten for the moment. Merrit ventured closer to hear Liam respond, “I store my journal in the bottom drawer. Leaving it out like that was Kevin’s message to me.” A sound like a sad and plaintive saxophone cry shook his shoulders. “All my efforts, for shite. He’ll have read the letter Andrew sent me before he died. The mystery letter Kevin’s been curious about ever since it arrived. And the journal too. He knows the truth about his adoption and Kate’s mother. He must despise me now.”

Danny strode past Merrit, back toward the living room. “Where’s your mobile?”

Merrit steadied herself and ventured closer still. What a colossal idiot to think she could knock on Liam’s door with her presumptuous list of solutions about the deaths, with her self-involved little storyboard about how it would all go once she’d gotten to know Liam. She chewed her lip, anguished by the sight of Liam’s slack lips. So suddenly an enfeebled man come undone by yet another aspect of this affair he couldn’t control: his son’s love for him, a love burdened enough to propel Kevin out of sight rather than face Liam’s catastrophic defects.

Merrit pulled up an antique wing chair, sat, and held Liam’s bad hand with its knotty scar tissue and thickened knuckles. “You don’t know for sure that he’s gone.”

“I’d tucked a letter to you into the journal. It’s gone, so he is too.” He grabbed her wrist with his good hand. “It must have been too much, a locked door after my oddness and events of these weeks. I never thought he’d use his master key, didn’t remember it until now, in fact.”

Danny reentered, phone in hand. “Tell Kevin the truth about your health. He’ll return straightaway then.”

“I’ll not have him returning for that reason.” Liam shoved the phone away. “The worst part is that he took the knife too. So now he really knows.”

“What knife?” Danny said.

“The inlaid knife, you know, the one he made me.” Liam shook his head in a confused manner. “It’s past my appointed time at the pub.”

Merrit pushed herself from Liam’s side and grabbed the phone from Danny, who stared at Liam as if stricken cold by a medusa. Liam bent over an open drawer and tossed papers onto the floor. “Maybe it’s still here.”

“The knife’s in evidence,” Danny said.

Danny stooped to gather up the papers, but Liam swatted his hands aside and continued yanking out the contents of the drawer.

Merrit stepped away and dialed the phone. “Kevin, this is Merrit. There’s something Liam ought to tell you in person. Something that makes all the difference. So come home.” She added on a sigh, “Liam doesn’t need me. He needs you.”

She turned to see Danny shutting the drawer, to hear Liam say, “The second inlaid knife. Identical they were.”

• 51 •

From Galway City heading west, Route 336 became Route 340 became Route 341 in curves that followed the coast and outlined small bays. The inland route would have dropped him at Connemara’s tip by now, but, Kevin reminded himself, he was onto something new. No more flying straight from one task to another. No hurry, no worry.

His mobile rang. It took every ounce of his self-discipline to ignore it. The mobile’s tiny monitor stared up at him from the cup holder, the only artificial light for miles. A few flicks of his thumb and he erased the message left from Liam’s number. He didn’t need to hear it to know that he was being summoned home.

He couldn’t return knowing what he now did. Deeper still, he couldn’t return because reading Liam’s journal had forced Kevin to admit that he, Kevin, needed to grow up. It sickened him that Liam had felt compelled to engage in one senseless act after another to protect Kevin from the truth of his adoption, Adrienne Meehan, the whole fucking mess. Christ, talk about remorse, talk about his, Kevin’s, uselessness as a human being, talk about pain like a body blow. He would always be the fragile, bereft orphaned boy in Liam’s eyes.

He eased the truck onto a dirt pullout and rolled down the window. A gust of salty air cooled his cheeks. He picked up the letter addressed to Merrit, congratulating himself for two seconds of hesitation before flaying the envelope.

Merrit, my dear,

Here I sit mostly staring into flames on this evening after my final visit to Kilmoon Church. I don’t plan on visiting her again. Apologies for not seeking you out these past weeks. I have my peculiar ways, and in this case they most certainly apply to you. I wished to observe you from afar, and when the proverbial shite hit the proverbial fan, I used the opportunity to catch a glimmer of your coping mechanisms. You do have highly attuned skills, which is an invaluable trait and one I demand of my successor.

You read correctly: successor.
(Ah, Kevin thought, the crux of everything: his legacy.)
And, you ask yourself—for I understand you this much—why not Kate, whose coping mechanisms were honed indeed? Here’s the difference I discerned: You coped in a way inclusive to those around you—Marcus, for example—while Kate coped with no one but herself in mind. That you befriended Marcus told me almost all I needed to know about you. That Kate pretended to befriend Lonnie, more than enough about her. Also, unlike you, she yearned for power over others, starting with me.

I watched you, watched Kate, and decided on you. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

All might have gone differently for Kate if she hadn’t believed that becoming matchmaker was her right of entitlement in exchange for keeping my secrets from the public, and most especially from Kevin. Another devil’s bargain like that with Andrew? I think not. As flexible as my morals may be, I would never pass down my title to the unfit. This was not an option. She’d have made the worst kind of matchmaker because she resented others’ happiness.

Her death, I’m afraid, was inevitable once I understood that she’d never let it go . . .