Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (3 page)

Julia Chase’s notebook

During the matchmaking festival, Lisfenora village is Liam Donellan’s court. He reigns in a fur-trimmed, flowing purple cape that flaps around his knees.
Flamboyant and fashionable with his long hair and
(My God, this is crap. Too bad the matchmaker is the best human-interest angle around.)

Eccentric he may be, but he’s the matchmaker, and each year September incomes grow along with Lisfenora’s fame. Wives stockpile jars of preserves homemade from blackberries that grow along stone walls. Husbands invest in sheep to provide wool for hand-knit sweaters because the foreigners inevitably arrive underdressed. Children take up residence in living rooms thereby opening bedrooms up for lodging.

No one minds the inconvenience because the man is a bona fide tourist attraction. In this region where most villages molder under the debilitating effects of unemployment, little Lisfenora thrives. All, it’s said, because of the matchmaking festival. (Need statistics here.)

Liam the Lion, as he’s often called, plants himself in the plaza with a gigantic ledger on his lap. Gold leaf gleams under mild sunlight, and the calfskin cover creaks when Liam opens the book. Upon thick parchment he scribbles crucial data about each supplicant . . . (I need to get to the heart of this Liam character. What about his own love life?)

• 3 •

Lonnie sipped coffee and grimaced at his computer screen. Christ, his mom together with Merrit, of all the sodding luck. But then, he couldn’t argue with bringing Merrit along to Liam’s party—good
craic
indeed.

He barked a laugh and settled back into moodiness. He tried not to picture Ivan out front wanking away on his laptop while twenty gleaming computers faced one another around the room’s perimeter. They were on, but you’d never know it to look at them. They’d long since fizzled into energy-saver mode so nothing but darkened monitors graced his shop. By rights, his cyber café should be doing well. So why wasn’t it?

In answer, Lonnie heard his father’s supercilious voice. “What you have now, my boy, is the classic problem of demand not meeting supply. The good news is that you can create demand. Marketing plans, they’re not just a dick-whipping exercise.”

Marketing plans. Not to mention publicity and promotion and giveaways and tie-ins with the sightseeing companies and an actual coffee bar. The word
café
in the storefront name
Internet Café
was symbolic only, for feck’s sake. Why would he serve coffee and risk damage to the computers?

So here Lonnie sat while down the road and across the plaza, his father, owner of the Grand Arms Hotel and a dozen other luxury accommodations along the west coast, perused numbers that glowed black as night at the end of each month. While he, Lonnie the Lovely—yes, he’d heard the words said behind his back—contended with digits that fizzled into the red even with Ivan’s expertise to back him up.

The shop cat—Ivan’s idea—nosed around Lonnie’s feet. Idly, Lonnie scratched the root of its tail. And what about Ivan anyhow? Lonnie didn’t dare fire him. Even this basic owner’s privilege lay beyond his free will. The man was a genius with computers and had a global network of cyber-hack contacts besides. He could retrieve anything.
Any
thing. Which meant that Lonnie must tolerate Ivan and his dodgy personal hygiene for the time being. Lonnie’s sideline into information nondisclosure services—INS, ha, ha—was temporary. Just until his business got going. Or maybe not, who knew?

“Ivan,” Lonnie called through the closed office door.

Ivan poked his head in with fingers scratching deep into masses of red hair that fluffed out of his head like cotton. Lonnie shuddered. Could be anything under those fingernails.

“This place is a bloody morgue. Get the music, will you?”

“We could get disco ball,” Ivan said, accent heavier than usual, a sign that he longed to sulk but dared not. “Hire women for sitting at the computers. They could be wearing almost nothing.”

Lonnie stood. The slob might be onto something. He could rig up private cubicles and charge half-hour fees. He could spread the word through the pubs. Hardworking men straight in from their labors and not ready for home—of course not, what with multiple brats and nagging sow wives there to greet the poor bastards. They’d sit in the pubs with their mates then saunter down to Internet Café. Yes, these blokes hankered for a moment of privacy such as he, Lonnie O’Brien, budding entrepreneur, could supply. He could even provide a menu of recommended websites for their viewing pleasure.

“Brilliant,” he said. “Ivan, you’re the man. But I’m thinking we’d best cater to the ladies also, or they’ll shut me down quick as a lad’s prude girlfriend. We’ll host women’s-only nights to appease them.”

“Your mother will love that,” Ivan said with something other than enthusiasm. “She will be organizing everything like always.”

Lonnie pushed Ivan backwards through the door. “We’ll serve tea and biscuits, teach them how to use the Internet. It’ll be a fecking social hour. Dear Mum will be useful when it comes to all that.”

“Singles evenings too,” Ivan said. “Maybe local dating service that we associate with the matchmaking festival. I can create password-aided program only accessible from our network. Our clients pay monthly fees to access our singles database and correspond through email—”

“Spot-on, you filthy Cossack, spot-on.” Lonnie pointed across the street, where Kevin Donellan had just stepped out of the post office. “I tell you what, I’m not hiring that wankstain to build the cubicles.”

“Cubicles?”

“You heard me, private cubicles.”

Lonnie ground his teeth as Kevin strode away without a glance at Internet Café. “And he’d best not stick his prick into my business affairs again, not after last year.
Authentic
storefronts, my ass.”

He retreated back into his office. A moment later, one of those whiny American songstresses filled the air and worsened his mood. Fuck me, he thought, and pulled his special folder out from under his desk blotter. A desultory flip didn’t yield magical revelations into fresh cash, though he couldn’t help stopping at a marriage announcement and marveling at the mystery that was fate, or destiny, or some other bull.

Chase-McCallum

Timothy and Cassandra Chase of Boston are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Julia Lane Chase, to Andrew James McCallum, of San Francisco, CA. Andrew is the son of Edward and Trinity McCallum of Chicago, IL.

The bride-to-be graduated from Vassar College and most recently worked as a travel writer. The groom-elect owns an international consulting and trade business headquartered in San Francisco.

Julia and Andrew met in Ireland. Their union is the result of an annual matchmaking festival held in Lisfenora, County Clare. The couple will move to California following their December 31, 1975, wedding, which is planned at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church.

He’d already teased out every possible angle from this bit, including the all-important fact that Julia Chase was three months pregnant by the time she got married. He needed to step up his efforts because Merrit would have no reason to continue paying him after she revealed her identity to Liam. He needed more, more of everything: other people’s secrets, other people’s money. Not to mention a fierce shagging since he was drawing up a wish list.

Ivan poked his head into the office. “Customer,” he whispered and by his hunched shoulders, the door chimes must have signaled a female of the good-looking variety.

“Go on then. I’ve got it.”

Lonnie took up position behind the counter, taking his time and inhaling the sultry, slightly over-ripened scent that flicked by him on the breeze the woman brought in with her.

“No need to be shy. Come in,” he said.

The woman stood just within the doorway. She was no local, to be sure. Lonnie hadn’t seen a hip cocked that way since his last trip to Amsterdam.

“I’d say I’m in already, wouldn’t you?” she said.

Ah, a Dublin accent. Jackeen in the western bogs and no wonder she looked as out of place as a whore in a nunnery. Beyond her, sunshine reached over the rooftops to lay bare cobblestone streets. Light silhouetted legs long enough to bow-tie around Lonnie’s waist.

“My name is Kate Meehan. And you’re Lonnie O’Brien?”

“At your service. Needing help with the Internet?”

“Hardly.”

Kate strolled along a bank of computers, clicking each mouse so the blackened screens fizzed back to their colorful displays.

“Much better,” she said.

She settled herself in front of the closest terminal and twirled the chair so she faced Lonnie. Her skirt slid up as she twisted to lift a laptop computer from the leather case still hooked over her shoulder. She pressed the on button, and turned the machine around to show Lonnie the blank screen. “I’m having a problem with the battery, only the battery is new so it must be the AC inverter.” She waved a nonchalant hand. “You haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Not likely.”

“I’ll wait for your man’s return then. He legged it out the back door just now. He’s the computer expert, right? You’re the pretty front man from the local rich family.”

“Now, see here—”

“I could use a good servicing also.” Her expression remained neutral. “For the laptop, of course.”

Before he knew it, Lonnie was seated beside Kate, watching her sandal dangle then fall to the floor as she crossed her legs. Lonnie crossed his legs also.

“You’re a man with connections,” she said. “That much is obvious.”

“Too true. Join me for a drink and we’ll get started on the connecting.”

“I’m here indefinitely.”

He hesitated, caught off guard by her response. “Working then?”

“Call it a whim.”

Kate wriggled forward on her seat. She had arctic eyes this one, and their icy haze pinned him as if she were an oracle—and a damned creepy, seductive one at that. Lonnie recrossed his legs, too aware of the itch in his lower abdomen.

“I might take you up on your drink offer,” she said. “I’m curious about this village of yours. I hear there’s a matchmaking festival each year.”

“It starts on Monday, in fact. I can introduce you to the matchmaker. He’s a most interesting old codger.”

“I’ll lay a wager on that.” She closed the laptop with a smart snap. Harder than necessary it seemed to Lonnie. “No need for introductions though.”

After that bemusing dismissal, Ivan returned, scalp-scratching as usual. He descended into earlobe-pulling as Kate explained her laptop’s ailment. Her presence triggered a spasm in his English, much to Lonnie’s chagrin.

“I must finding an AC inverter,” Ivan said and fled into his workshop with the malfunctioning computer.

“Might be a couple of hours,” Lonnie said. “The man’s a pack rat.”

“Fine. I’ll be back in exactly two hours.” She handed him a business card with only her name and phone number printed on it. “Call me.”

Kate left, but her perfume lingered. No one settled in Lisfenora on a whim, this much Lonnie knew, and especially not a woman as calculated in her mannerisms as Kate Meehan.

***

One hour later, Lonnie bestowed a pat onto Ivan’s back. After fixing the AC inverter, Ivan had bypassed Kate’s security password—somehow, who knew how the techno-freak did it?—to reveal Kate’s world on microchip, and what a scintillating world that turned out to be.

Tsk, tsk, a naughty one was our Kate. So much so that Lonnie thought she might be the perfect woman.

Lonnie chortled as he thought about nancy-boy Kevin again. Kevin didn’t know shit about shit, poor sod. When he did find out, he’d pop a blood vessel for sure. That pleasure was for the future, however. For now, Lonnie must concentrate on his cash flow.

“I’d say a friendly chat with Kate is the order of the day,” he said.

• 4 •

On the brink of Saturday’s dawn, Kevin Donellan hovered neither too close to his father nor too far away in case the stubborn old git lost his balance. Liam, as usual, sat on his favorite gravestone among Celtic crosses that marked the resting spots of people long dead. He wore a tweed newspaper boy’s cap and matching sport jacket. The cap wobbled on his head, and the jacket sleeves hung past his wrists.

“You’re sure about it then?” Kevin said.

“Quit harping. You’re worse than the magpies. You think I don’t drive myself into the village when you’re at one of your construction sites?”

Kevin squinted against a hangover. Tonight he’d be after it again, the only difference being that he’d be buried alive by birthday revelers. He enjoyed his pints well enough, but he didn’t look forward to the party. He never did, in fact, and this year would be worse than ever. One year ago today, he thought. Is that when things started to change?

“I made a decision here a long time ago,” Liam said in a voice soft enough Kevin barely caught the words.

Liam’s
here
was Our Lady of the Kilmoon, an early Christian church stained with mossy grime that had aged her past her years. The relic was hardly bigger than Kevin’s cottage but with a moody presence nonetheless as she watched over her graves. Her thatched roof had disintegrated long ago because only rock tolerated the Irish rainscape. Yet, even her hardy walls had started to succumb to the elements. Loose rocks littered the ground around her, half hidden by grassy tussocks. A drystone wall marked her territory, within which grave markers and Celtic crosses slowly sank into the ground. More walls bordered fields spreading green and lush in all directions. A few houses stood off in the distance. Out here in the middle of nowhere cows and sheep outnumbered humans.

In the neighboring sheep pasture, a pre-Celtic standing stone glowed orange in the growing light. The obelisk appeared more permanent than Our Lady, which was built a millennium later. It shared space with livestock and rock walls and blackthorn, while the church, though picturesque, usurped space as if she knew she didn’t belong and must protect her parcel of land all the more for it. Kevin imagined the early Christians glancing at the standing stone as they entered the church and then secretly praying to the pagan gods the stone represented.

Despite the clash of old cultures, or more likely because of it, this was a sacred spot, which might be why Liam had started dragging Kevin along for what amounted to brooding sessions. No coincidence these sessions began the day after Liam had received a letter that he still refused to share with Kevin. When was that? Early July? Sometime after the rains finally abated for a short while, in any case.

“I decided to let myself fall in love,” Liam said. “I felt entitled, you see. It was my turn, but I turned it into nothing but a harpy’s burial.”

Liam turned up his collar against the wind only to have a gust blow off his cap, which flipped three times and landed on one of Our Lady’s windowsills. Kevin didn’t understand how Liam’s hats grew too big because surely his skull couldn’t shrink. He retrieved the cap, fearing what Liam would say next. He preferred the Liam of old, who never spoke of his past.

Kevin handed the cap to Liam and stepped away to pluck at a bouquet of withered violets. To his way of thinking, the flowers were useless. The leftover bits of skeleton, if any, cared nothing about such niceties. They were already mutated into another life, another death, on and on through time like endless tiled corridors.

Off to Kevin’s left, Liam pulled the irksome letter from his pocket to finger it for the thousandth time. With an annoyed grunt as prelude, Kevin began whistling against the sound of the letter sliding out of its envelope. A Beatles song, the one about Jude, who shouldn’t carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Why not let me match you this year, sonny boy?” Liam said. “Time’s running out, you know.”

Kevin squeezed the violet stems but caught himself before crushing them.

“You saw too much matchmaking in your youth, I suppose,” Liam continued. “Took the romance right out of marriage.”

A few minutes later, the sun officially breached the eastern horizon and bounced light off the Celtic crosses. Kevin remained close as they walked the lumpy path toward the lane and to Liam’s sea-salt encrusted Corolla. Kevin took control of the steering wheel. The headlights highlighted a narrow lane lined with more rock walls. Hazel scrub and holly scraped the car when Kevin eased off the embankment.

“Let me help you with the matchmaking this year,” he pushed. It was an old argument.

Liam scowled. “Enough discussion on the matter. I have the strength for one more festival at least. I’m not dead yet.”

As he drove toward the village, Kevin struggled to imagine Liam’s prime as the swashbuckling matchmaker. Tales still circulated about the youthful Liam, cocky yet charming, with a mane of wild hair and vigor to spare. Liam the Lion he was called, though nowadays he looked about as leonine as a shorn sheep.

Despite this, Kevin could almost picture Liam the Lion striding through the village, which hadn’t changed much since the 1970s. The hub still revolved around the plaza, and each Wednesday step dancing lessons still began at 7:00 p.m. in the Grand Arms Hotel. On the opposite corner, the market still stayed open into the long twilight to cater to the tourists. Too bad the new addition to their community, the Internet café, intruded between two gift shops. Kevin would like nothing better than to see the modern eyesore closed down for good, but the O’Brien family’s bottomless coffers kept it afloat.

From the plaza, the Donellan homestead stood a few miles away off a series of rutted lanes. The Corolla’s brakes squeaked as Kevin pulled up in front of a ranch-style house complete with bright green trim. Kevin had built it for Liam, all the while lamenting the demise of the white-washed cottages of old. Kevin pivoted out of the car and rounded to the passenger side to see Liam gazing at a sliver moon that still hovered near the horizon. His gimpy hand with fingers brittle as twigs lay curled on his lap. Kevin leaned over to hoist Liam to his feet.

“Hovering magpie, stop with you,” Liam said. “I’m not arthritic. Only the hand.”

“Old troll, don’t forget the hip. Use your cane.”

“Bugger that, I tripped last night, that’s all.”

The porch light clicked on as Kevin moved into its sensor range. Looking back, he caught Liam’s eyes aglow, bright green and adamant. “I can handle the festival, do you doubt that?”

For a second, Kevin caught a glimpse of Liam the Lion, but the image faded with Liam’s limping step forward.

“I don’t understand vegans,” Liam said when he crossed the threshold. “They’re often judgmental and hard to match. Then there are the women who don’t want children, and the men who’d prefer to stay home to tend them. It’s all backwards I tell you.” Kevin loitered in the doorway while Liam turned on the lamp next to his reading chair. “Even an old master like me has to let go. In fact, I’ve no choice. I made two matchmaking mistakes last year.”

A draft slithered up Kevin’s back, and for a second he froze in an attempt to comprehend the impossible. Liam never made mistakes. This was a law as universal as gravity. But then, there was a time when Liam filled out his clothes, a time when gray hair fine as a kitten’s belly didn’t ring his head, a time when Kevin assumed Liam would live forever. Just like there was a time—that sliver of time, still sharp after all these years—when he’d believed Sister Ignatius’s answer when he’d asked how long God would love him. For all eternity, she’d answered in her hushed way. Kevin used to believe in eternity and forever.

“I’ll have last say in the matter,” Liam said, his tone defiant now.

“You always do. Now rest up for the party. I predict utter chaos.”

Kevin’s mobile vibrated from within his back pocket. He checked it, thinking it might be his work crew already bitching about something and the day not yet begun. Instead, he saw Danny’s number and decided to call him back later. “That’s Danny, probably checking on when we’ll arrive at the party.”

“He doing door duty again this year?”

“Doubtful. I get the feeling he just wants to relax.”

“Ay,” Liam confirmed. “I worry about that boy. His marriage—”

“I know it.”

Kevin was almost out the door when Liam inserted his last say for the moment. “No need to drop in for lunch. I’m fine, I tell you.”

The door closed behind Kevin with a well-oiled click. He yawned up at the disappearing moon shadow and decided to walk the rest of the way down the track to the cottage that was his childhood home. He would return for lunch anyhow. This was what good sons did, check in on their fathers.