Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (5 page)

• 7 •

Liam’s party was officially under way as confirmed by the people-buzz leaking into Merrit’s flat from the Plough and Trough next door. Her flat wasn’t much, just a box of a room with furniture pushed up against the walls and a tiny bathroom in the corner. Her landlady’s lace doilies and runners sat under the lamps and over the sofa bed arms and along the coffee table. Merrit supposed the average tourist loved the Irishness of all this handmade lace, but all she felt was sticky-stuck in a spider web. Especially now, as she paced the length of her narrow confines.

Downstairs, her landlady’s beagle howled, a sure sign that Mrs. Sheedy was about to cook up something with cabbage. Merrit opened the window above the sink to preempt the fumes. Outside, moonlight filtered through high cloud cover, and the breeze smelled of nothing, as if the currents that flowed over the Atlantic were more pristine than those over the Pacific. Merrit loved the empty smell, cool and clear as water. To calm her nerves, she inhaled until the breeze caught peat smoke drifting from the Plough’s chimney.

Knuckles rapped on her door. The knob turned and Lonnie sauntered inside wearing a cream linen suit with narrow pant legs and a black, collarless shirt. Nice suit. Too bad he looked so slimy within it.

“Safe place, our Lisfenora,” he said. “I’m glad to see you trust us enough to keep your door unlocked.”

“Not safe enough, apparently. Give me a second. You’re early.”

She stepped into the bathroom, wondering if Lonnie ever felt a prick of contrition. Just one sharp little nudge. About anything. But no—silly thought. She knew in her instinctive way that self-reproach wasn’t in Lonnie’s emotional repertoire, just like she’d known that the woman, Kate, hadn’t invited Merrit to join her table out of kindness. Something about Kate fascinated Merrit, but she couldn’t pinpoint what.

Merrit applied lipstick and put on her mom’s moonstone necklace. She opened the medicine cabinet’s door so she could watch Lonnie in its mirror. He tucked her latest cash “installment” into an inner jacket pocket. She’d left the money on the telephone stand next to the door, ready to grab on her way out the door.

“Just so we’re clear,” she said, “a party with hundreds of witnesses isn’t the way I plan to meet Liam for the first time. So, please, please, refrain from drawing attention to me.”

Lonnie stepped out of mirror range. “Hello-o, what do we have here?”

Rustling papers reminded her of the unmade sofa bed. She hadn’t bothered to tidy it because she’d planned to wait for Lonnie outside. Worse yet, her mom’s notebook lay on the pillow. Springs squeaked when she landed on the bed and made a grab for it.

“Aren’t you the feisty thing?” Lonnie swung away from her and flipped to a page at random. “
I need to get to the heart of this Liam character
,” he read. “Your mother, the intrepid journalist, willing to do just about anything to get her story, was she?”

“Just give it to me. You got your money, what more do you want?”

Lonnie bowed and dropped the notebook onto the bed. “Nothing I don’t already know, is it? Get on with you then, the festivities await.”

Merrit pulled the rubber band out of her hair but didn’t bother tidying the waves that fell heavy against her shoulders. “How about answering a question first.”

“Ah, Jesus,
now
you’re going to slag me? You’ll be asking me how I could take money from strangers. If that’s the way this evening is heading, I’ll be needing a drink now.” He opened cabinets in the kitchenette. Finding nothing, he trolled the fridge and pulled out a beer. Just like Marcus with the edge on him, Lonnie twisted off the top and downed it in one go. “Right, so here’s your answer—I’ve got a hard-on for cash not linked to the family business. I’ve been told since this tall how lucky I am to have the hotels, a loving mother and affectionate sisters, and a father ready to be proud of me. And I could give a shit.”

“That’s quite the sob story. Seems to me you could go to Dublin, get a career.”

“Don’t go getting that pious look. You’re a worse cock-up than I am, coming halfway around the world to find solace, or love, or fuck-all if I know, boo-hoo for you. Christ.”

Merrit stepped into her sandals, trying not to let on that he’d driven his point home a little too well. A moment later she closed the door after them, and Lonnie in his shiny dress shoes tapped down the stairs ahead of her.

***

Inside the Plough and Trough, Merrit stood against a wall angling for a glimpse of Liam, who sat within a throng of well-wishers in the corner of the room. For the most part, she could see only the closest talking, laughing, and drinking heads. Lonnie wasn’t among them, thank goodness. With a glance at his watch, he’d excused himself and disappeared into the crowd. She didn’t mind if he never returned.

Merrit pressed herself against the wall as more people squeezed into the pub and the entire crowd shifted. The Plough was a genteel but shabby place, full of wood paneling and brass fixtures that used to gleam. The largest selection of whiskey bottles Merrit had ever seen hung upside down on the wall behind the bar. With fake nonchalance, Merrit sipped her two ounces of Bushmills and nodded at the old gents seated to her left. Wedged in good and tight between them and the gift table to her right, she felt somewhat protected from the buffeting crowd, somewhat invisible, somewhat safe to observe Liam in peace. She liked his kindly face, the type of face that invited intimacies of all kinds. She knew this well from reading her mom’s notes, and now she witnessed it in action as he clapped a hand on a man’s shoulder and laughed at something he said. A spasm of longing caused Merrit to cough on a sip of whiskey.

“Watch yourself there, love. You’ll topple the presents,” Mrs. O’Brien called as she pushed her way toward Merrit. Her voice pinned Merrit’s eardrums like a couple of mounted bugs. “I swear I don’t know what people think to give Liam. There’s not a thing in this world the man needs except a woman around the house.”

Mrs. O’Brien wore a shiny blouse left over from the 1980s. Shoulder pads and a large bow enhanced her doughy chin. With her overwrought teased-up hair, she reminded Merrit of a poodle with a bad stylist. Behind her, one of the daughters—Mariela? Constanza?—scanned the crowd with an impatient expression.

“Now, where’s my Lonnie at?” Mrs. O’Brien continued. “My boy, he’s social to be sure, has too many friends to keep count.”

Merrit sipped, noting the way the daughter rolled her eyes and eased away from Mrs. O’Brien with a, “Right, I’m off then. Meeting a friend.”

“And what friend is this?” Mrs. O’Brien said, but the daughter had already slipped into the crowd. “Really, I don’t know what’s wrong with her lately.”

Merrit sipped to hide a smile, remembering what Marcus had said about Mrs. O’Brien nagging the devil out of hell itself.

Mrs. O’Brien added two presents to the table and began rearranging them, all the while talking to no one in particular and everyone in general. She blocked Merrit’s view of Liam, so Merrit settled back to wait her out. She
uh-huh
’ed in response to Mrs. O’Brien’s rant about inconsiderate children and stretched her neck to peruse the bar, where foreign currency papered a section of wall and hurling trophies lined the uppermost shelf. She caught Kevin Donellan angling for a glance at her through the moving heads. He directed a statement to the tall man next to him, who glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. Merrit recognized him as he returned to contemplating the whiskey bottles. Detective Sergeant Danny Ahern. Practically a brother to Kevin, Marcus had said. And it would seem so because the two men sat together drowning themselves in pints, not talking much yet looking utterly comfortable with each other.

Kevin glanced at her again. His blinks in her direction unnerved her even though, before disappearing, Lonnie had pointed him out and insisted that Kevin—Liam’s
adopted
son, he kept repeating—didn’t know her for anyone but Lonnie’s date. That may have been true, but she was supposed to be observing Kevin, not the other way around.

“Can’t stand the bastard.” Lonnie had rubbed a finger along his perfect nose. “He landed me in the hospital last year because I dared shag his precious Emma. They’d broken up already, for Christ’s sake. Besides which, she was mad for it after his flaccid fumblings.”

She’d barely heard him after the word “adopted.” Liam’s adopted son. She hadn’t considered adoption, much less that the son would be about her age. She’d imagined Liam with a young wife, a woman he had met as he entered late middle age, a companion of sorts, but one who’d wanted one child before Liam got too old.

Instead, adoption. Given the way her mom had described Liam in her notebook, Merrit had assumed that back in the ’70s he wasn’t the fatherly sort. Yet, apparently he was. A nervous worm threaded itself around her lungs. Careful, she told herself. She mustn’t clutch at emotional straws or succumb to the fear that she was unanchored in the world.

“I wager some of these gifts are beyond appropriate,” Mrs. O’Brien said, rousing Merrit from her unwelcome thoughts. “Last year Liam received a gift certificate for a massage, and you know what that means. Oh, there’s Lonnie.”

Merrit’s heart stuttered to a halt, and then pounded harder than ever. Lonnie hovered near Liam, and with a grin pointed in Merrit’s direction. Liam straightened and sought her out through the crowd. Merrit ducked against the wall. A mini-earthquake spread among the presents. She grabbed the closest pile and waited until the lopsided table legs stabilized.

“Careful.” Mrs. O’Brien’s smile of pride never left Lonnie. “He’s got a way with him, a truly delightful young man. Why, he’s waving you over.”

“Excuse me,” Merrit said.

“Go on then. Meet Liam.”

Like hell she would. Not like this. And Lonnie knew it. She’d given him the money out of her wallet to ensure he didn’t pull this stunt. She tried to squeeze her way between the old gents to her left and Mrs. O’Brien in front her. A raised floorboard caught her heel, and she stumbled against the gift table. The gift piles swayed. Her lungs started their inexorable squeeze.

Merrit became aware of eyes flickering over her from all directions. She wasn’t as invisible as she’d hoped, and it didn’t help that Lonnie was waving her toward Liam. The worm around her lungs tightened. She was an intruder, and she never should have let Lonnie goad her into coming.

With Mrs. O’Brien barring her way, Merrit backed up against the wall again. There was nothing for it but to crawl under the gift table and get out fast before Lonnie yelled across the room, or, worse yet, forcibly dragged her to Liam. Before she could make her escape, a wall nail caught her dress and she yanked her arm so hard her elbow knocked into the gifts. Her tumbler let go a waterfall of amber liquid as it sailed to the floor. Dozens of gifts followed in a perfect arc of shimmering wrapping paper. She dropped to the ground but too late to save the glass from shattering against floorboards and a dozen gifts from landing in the whiskey and shards. A secondary crack followed as the last present landed on the floor. An amber stain soaked into wrapping-paper clown faces.

“I told you to be careful,” Mrs. O’Brien said, her voice like a bullhorn. “Didn’t I tell her?”

Merrit sat back on her haunches. There went her anonymity —such as it was—with the arrival of whoops and catcalls from the crowd.

“I’m so sorry.” She held up the clown gift and heard an ominous clunk. “I’ll pay for this. Tell”—she glanced at the card—“tell Patty O’Reardon I’ll buy a new one. Will you tell her that?”

While Mrs. O’Brien sputtered, Merrit drew on the spirit of her mom to grant her enough poise to exit without further mishap. She crawled under the table, and grabbed at a jovial drunk’s arm to pull herself up on the other side. Ducking and weaving through the crowd, she bumped into Ivan, who managed to appear both pissed off and fretful as he fought his own way through the crowd.

Lonnie’s voice carried over the party chaos. “Merrit!”

“Why is Lonnie doing this?” Merrit gasped. “You must know.”

“Maybe something annoyed him,” Ivan said, “and now he takes it out on you. This is my experience.”

“You tell him we’re going to talk. Tomorrow bright and early. I’ll come by the café.”

Before leaving, she couldn’t resist tiptoeing for a last view of Liam as she pulled on the door against the crowd’s collective weight. Between the heads and shoulders, she caught sight of him tracking her with an intensity not meant for public settings.

He knew her.

He
knew
her, no dismissing the fact. Her lungs reignited at the thought that this humiliated retreat was her biological father’s first impression of her. Gulping against the knot in her throat, she wedged herself through the door and into blessedly cool air.

Julia Chase’s notebook

I’m unsure how to proceed with this article. It’s well enough to write about the Burren, Cliffs of Moher, Aran Islands—highlights for the intrepid traveler—but Ramsey insists on his additional 750 words aimed at a wider audience. A fluff piece, he said. Human interest. So the matchmaking festival it is, and Liam the Lionesque, it is. Unfortunately, the more I ragtag with Liam, the harder this piece is to write. So much for objectivity. I’m a disgrace to my fellow travel writers.

However, that said, I think I’ve come up with a workable angle. Since I’m not distanced anyhow, I might as well insert myself into the story. I’ll be my own experiment. Ethical or not, I’ll let Liam match me—and apologies later to the man stuck without a bride. I can’t think how else to write this piece because every time I meet with Liam, the article is the last thing on my mind—the way his long arms snake out of his cape, all small wrists and prominent veins and hands ready to grab mine.

• 8 •

The morning after Liam’s party, Merrit stumbled her way from the sofa bed to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. She opened her eyes to view her sorry reflection in the mirror. She was her mom’s daughter for sure—at least with the greenish-hazel eyes and chin dimple—but try as she might, she couldn’t tell whether she resembled the matchmaker. And, oh damn, the party last night. Dropping her head, she bumped it repeatedly against the mirror. No, no, no. Now she’d be the visitor who sat with the outcast drunk
and
destroyed birthday gifts.

Worse yet, Liam himself, the way he’d spied her out through the crowd, still sporting a good-natured smile, but also with a squint as if he were analyzing her fitness for daughterhood. Her hopes sank just thinking about it. Now she needed a less excruciating way to introduce herself to him than waiting around on the plaza until he caught sight of her. The possibility that he’d pass her over for one of the lovelorn made her queasy.

But, first things first: Lonnie and his grubby little machinations. He’d better tell her what he’d said to Liam last night.

Too tired to care how she looked, she grabbed the black party dress that she’d dropped on the floor before falling into bed, dressed, and left the flat. Downstairs, she eased past her landlady’s side door and stepped into the narrow lane—more like an alley—that ran parallel to the noncoastal one block away. The cobblestoned lane smelled dank, and shadows held on against the coming day. Merrit paused, feeling eyes on her back. She glanced around, but the alley remained silent and still.

She peered left, toward the plaza, searching for but not seeing Marcus on his usual bench. A quick detour before heading to Internet Café was in order. She trotted out of the alley and into the plaza. In the fuzzy orange light cast by a rising sun, Lisfenora resembled a fairy tale village the way the storefronts shifted from canary yellow to purple to teal depending on the owners’ tastes. Pretty soon, the
failte
welcome mats would appear, and, if not for drivers trying to maneuver around each other in the narrow lanes, Merrit might imagine herself back in the late nineteenth century when bonnets and gartered socks were all the rage.

Given her paranoid mood, the plaza was more like it: open and transparently cheerful. Even so, Merrit turned back to sight down the length of the alley and its double row of closed doors. Must have been her landlady, Mrs. Sheedy, spying on her comings and goings through lace curtains. As usual. The woman was almost as bad as Mrs. O’Brien.

On the far side of the plaza, Merrit found Marcus sprawled over the length of a bench with half the contents of an overturned flask soaked into his trousers. “Wake up,” Merrit said. “You’d better go to—wherever you usually go to sleep. Marcus?” She poked his arm. “Are you OK? Wake up.”

He didn’t move. Not a twitch.

Alarmed, she leaned closer. “Marcus,” she said into his ear.

Marcus jerked awake with a sharp cry. His hands fumbled into the air, and then, seeing Merrit, he lapsed back into grumbles. “Sweet Mary and Jaysus fecking Christ, have you gone mental?”

“Maybe so, but Jaysus F. Christ yourself—I thought you’d gone and died on me. Here, sit up.”

Marcus pushed himself up with a groan. With shaking hands, he patted down his hair and tucked his shirt into his soggy trousers. He felt under himself for the flask and tsked sadly when it came up empty. “Good
craic,
the party?”

“Hellish, more like,” Merrit said. “And Lonnie only made it worse as you can imagine.”

Marcus’s stomach growled.

“One errand,” she said, “and then I’ll take us to breakfast.”

Marcus muttered, shaking his head. “Could have sworn to a full dinner last night. Or maybe not, because we all know I’m not to be trusted, not even in thought. Even so, I’ll take my gin-soaked vagueness, thank you very much. And maybe a bloody fecking pint for breakfast too.”

“What’s up with you? You seem more out of it than usual.” She perused him with fresh concern. “Your shoes are untied.”

He lifted his feet to view his graffiti’d green and yellow sneakers. “So they are.”

Merrit cast about behind the bench. “Did someone take your afghan?”

“The afghan was on my lap. Cozy it was.” Marcus’s face crumpled. “Oh Christ, but then what? Such is the steaming load of shite that is my life.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said despite her disappointment. “I’m sure the afghan will turn up. Wait here while I tell off that Lonnie once and for all.”

***

Back in the alley, Merrit counted doors, passing her lodgings as she went. Fifth door down, this would be Internet Café’s back entrance.

The door was the tiniest bit ajar, which was odd even by Lisfenora’s safe standards. Merrit hesitated with fist raised against the shop’s door. No way was Lonnie at work this early in the morning. Ivan had to be up and about then. She nudged the door open to see a shabby storage area. Stacked packages of printer paper leaned against one another, covered in dust, and a bathroom exuded a musty funk. A yellow tabby sidled through an inner door that must lead to the storefront. The little fellow mewed and brushed her legs. Merrit picked him up.

She carried the purring cat through the storage area and into the shop. Perhaps she could relay a message through Ivan to Lonnie. Something along the lines of,
Stop talking to Liam about me, or else.

Or else what? She wasn’t sure, but it was better than nothing at this point.

A squeal, or perhaps a moan, issued from Lonnie’s office. Merrit froze. A moment later the rat-a-tatting of computer keys ceased and oaths in Ivan’s native Russian took over. Merrit smiled. The minion up to no good in the boss’s office. Now he’d see how much he liked having his personal life threatened with exposure.

On tiptoes, she stepped past computers and around the service counter behind which Ivan usually sat. Thankfully, the window blinds were drawn. No one could see her as she stepped toward one of two doorways marked “For Employees Only,” only to freeze again, this time in the office doorway with the cat pressed against her chest. She knew death when she saw it. There was no mistaking its particular brand of stillness. Death had sucked the energy out of Lonnie’s body, leaving it as bereft of life as a hologram.