Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery (7 page)

• 11 •

The scene that met Danny at Internet Café only half surprised him. He’d expected his men to arrive ahead of him and start securing the scene. He’d also expected Ivan, but he hadn’t expected the attractive American who gawked at him as if he’d swanned in wearing a tiara. He shrugged off her reaction only to catch his reflection in the closest computer monitor. That was some slump to his shoulders. He looked like what he was—henpecked and hungover—which wasn’t any better than wearing a tiara.

“Ivan,” he said to the man whose hair stuck out in all directions except for lumps caked to his head with hair gel. Driving in, Danny had noticed a
Closed for Repairs
sign taped to one of the shop’s windows and written in what looked to be a hasty foreign hand. Ivan’s, no doubt, and what else had he touched along the way?

And feck if those weren’t latex gloves on his hands. “Tell me Garda O’Neil gave you those, or I’ll have to wonder.”

“He was wearing them, all right.” O’Neil nodded toward Ivan’s cohort. “So was she.”

The woman sat with O’Neil at the front of the shop while Ivan waited with Garda Pickney at the opposite end. In identical moves, the witnesses held up their hands and turned them over like magicians. Abracadabra, we’re innocent, see?

Ivan pointed to one of two doors located behind the counter. “I keep a collection in my workroom. I am careful not to put finger oils on the computer parts. When I saw Lonnie—of course, I have seen the television shows. I know what I am to do.”

He looked toward the woman for confirmation. “American cop dramas,” she said.

These two, they reminded Danny of Mandy and Petey talking around each other to hide the fact that they’d pilfered the last biscuits.

“You still live upstairs, correct?” Danny said to Ivan.

A nod.

“Did you hear anything last night?”

A vehement shake. “I drank too much.”

“And you didn’t check the premises before going to bed I take it.”

Ivan twitched. The movement might have been a shrug. “I never do. Lonnie does not pay me enough to be security guard.”

“And you,” Danny began, taking in the wavy hair floating over the woman’s shoulders, similar to Ellen’s hair.

“You’re in charge of the case?” she said before he could continue.

“I’d say that’s obvious.”

“It’s just that I saw you at the party last night. You were sitting next to Kevin Donellan at the bar. The matchmaker’s son?”

Now he recognized her. “And you’re the Good Samaritan who sits with Marcus.”

“He’s my friend.”

Danny eyed her wrinkled party dress. “And you are Lonnie’s friend too? Seems like I recall that your date with him ended badly.”

She grimaced. “As everyone knows by now, thanks to Mrs. O’Brien. You’d have thought I knocked over the presents on purpose. She thrives on drama, for sure.”

O’Neil snorted. “That’s putting it lightly.”

“Tell me about your date,” Danny said.

“It wasn’t a date.” Merrit crinkled her nose. “At least not by my standards of the word. Mrs. O’Brien butted her head into my social life, that’s all.”

“Mmm-hmm. What’s your name?”

“Merrit Chase.”

“And what brings you here this morning?”

“It’s a habit of mine, to check my email first thing. Ivan heard me knocking on the back door—I’m staying just across the alley and down a few doors—and he let me in. I think I woke him up.”

“I overslept today—how could I not?” Ivan said. “And I substantiate that she checks her email.”

Pickney rolled his eyes toward O’Neil. “Hear that, he can
substantiate
Miss Chase’s email usage. And I’ll venture other habits as well?”

“We hardly know each other,” Merrit said.

“For a couple of strangers, you seem to know each other well enough,” O’Neil piped up. “Wouldn’t you say, sir?”

“Maybe so,” Danny said.

Danny glanced around the room at the quiet computers and dimmed overheads, then toward the noncoastal where Lisfenorans and tourists had started their rounds. Through the blinds, he could just make out flits of color as people passed the shop.

“Gents, hold on to our two witnesses while I take a look at our victim.” He studied Merrit’s tensed jaw and averted gaze. “Problem with that?”

She shook her head.

Garda O’Toole was already in Lonnie’s office taking preliminary notes. A quick scan showed Danny nothing obvious except the knife in the chest and grubby euro notes littering the floor. Lonnie lay with eyes aimed at the door and jaw hanging as if he’d been in the process of saying something when the knife plunged into him.

“I know there’s a cat in here somewhere,” Danny said to O’Toole. “Before the day’s out, grab it up and drop it off at the hotel. Mrs. O’Brien can take care of it.”

“Yes, sir.” O’Toole pointed to Lonnie’s chest. “The knife is unusual.”

“So it is.” Danny bent over Lonnie for a closer look at the knife’s inlaid wooden handle. “Shit.”

“Sir?”

“Never mind. Thinking aloud, as painful as that is.”

He crouched next to the body. In doing so, he caught sight of a white plastic canister under the desk. He swung himself into the other room. “Which one of you has asthma?”

“Not me, and neither did Lonnie,” Ivan said.

“You?” Danny said to Merrit.

A purse the size of a backpack perched on her lap. Her hands twitched toward it and fell back. Something was off with her, but he sensed it wasn’t the obvious. Criminals don’t usually let themselves get caught wearing their latex gloves.

“No asthma,” she said.

“Pickney, isolate Ivan,” Danny said. “There’s a storage room in back. Get his statement there. And Ivan, we’ll talk about your brilliant move to call Mr. O’Brien instead of the Garda. Makes you appear guiltier than ever.”

“I am not guilty of anything except healthy fear of the authorities,” Ivan said as Pickney walked him away. “Of course I called Lonnie’s father first. That is the proper respect.”

“Respect, right.” Danny frowned at Merrit, who sat prim as a schoolgirl with feet together and hands now resting atop her purse. Her eyes were a shade of hazel so light they appeared to glow, and her gaze hinted at depths she tried hard to conceal. “O’Neil, I need a second’s worth of help with our illustrious dead man, then get Miss Chase’s initial statement. Don’t move, Miss Chase.”

Out of Merrit’s earshot, he directed O’Neil to watch Merrit carefully for signs of uneasiness or relief. “She’s hiding something.”

He returned to the corpse with a worsening hangover headache. Walking around the body, he noticed another oddity. Instead of the usual items found missing from a dead person—the gleaming watch, the wallet—it looked like Lonnie would be interred without his braid. Someone had snipped it clean away.

• 12 •

On Sunday evening Kevin lounged with Liam. This was their last quiet evening before the festival chaos consumed them for the next month. Not that Kevin felt relaxed. He’d been tense for the past few weeks anyhow, and then this morning he’d woken up agitated by thoughts of Emma.

Kevin’s recliner squeaked when he shifted, and the stink of beer sweat filled his nose. Meanwhile, Liam scribbled away, comfortable as could be in his stuffed chair with the turf fire roaring at his feet. Kevin turned his gaze from flickering fire shadows to his father, the true source of Kevin’s tension. Something ailed Liam for sure. He’d been journaling since the bloody mystery letter arrived.

“Stop staring at me.” Liam jabbed his pen down, a most emphatic period, and shut his journal. “I implore you, go out, have fun, have a life.”

“Dusting,” Kevin said. “How about that for having fun?”

Kevin fetched a damp dishcloth from the kitchen and began by wiping down the mantel above the hearth. He moved on to the shelves that lined the wall behind his chair. Shoeboxes and an eclectic assortment of trinkets lined the shelves. Kevin picked up a miniature painting of the River Seine as drawn by thousands of Parisian street artists. This one was signed,
Thanks to Liam the Matchmaker!

He set aside the painting, began dusting the first shoebox, labeled
1969
, and continued on up the line of years. He could delve into any box and read thank-you notes from happy people everywhere. Liam’s public history on view.

Liam’s displayed life didn’t amount to a piss in the wind though. “Why the sudden ache to record your life? The truth now.”

“To leave to you, why else?”

Some consolation. Kevin tipped a box labeled 1975 off the shelf and heard a soft thunk from within. “You ought to hit the scratcher early. The first day of the festival is always grueling.”

“Don’t think I didn’t see you eyeballing that Merrit lass last night at the party.”

“Would you leave off about women, for Christ’s sake?” Kevin said. “Marcus was the one to shout her out to us, but she didn’t look to need saving from Lonnie after all that.”

The truth was, something in her expression had disturbed Kevin. A furtive longing that she’d shot around the room like a searchlight only to land on Liam once too often.

“She reminded me of one of those lost dogs on the Battersea animal shelter commercials,” Liam said. “Probably could do with a friend.”

“Better she find someone else then.”

Kevin whap-whapped the 1975 container with the cloth, hard, and watched dust plumes lose themselves among shifting fire shadows. Curious about the thunk he had heard, he lifted the lid to see a jewelry box with tiny hinges and a shiny black surface. Apparently, he’d never snooped as far back as 1975. He’d have remembered this item. He flicked open the box. A pair of earrings shone up at him. He held one of them up so that the firelight reflected through a dazzling blue stone that dangled from a filigreed silver ear clasp.

Liam squinted up at Kevin, who caught the sudden shock that rounded out his mouth. “What the devil?” Liam said.

“My thought exactly. Some special lassie missed her earrings. What’s the story?”

“No story. I just don’t care to see them.”

“What’s got you crankier than a rusted screw?” Kevin said.

“Oh me, that’s rich. You’ve been acting the broody hen for weeks. I’m telling you, you need to get a life before I land feet up.”

Kevin snapped the jewelry box closed and shoved the 1975 container back onto the shelf. He retreated to the kitchen, where he ground his fists into his temples and ordered himself not to feel so frayed and edgy. Maybe the time had come for a serious chat with Liam, something along the lines of, “Old troll, don’t try to match me. Old troll, don’t distract me with requests to befriend a stranger. Old troll, leave me alone to be your son for the years you have left.”

“Holy hell,” Kevin grunted and gave up the fight to stifle his frustration, not to mention his uneasiness. Liam had been acting sneaky. Hiding away a letter, writing in a journal, brooding on her ladyship Kilmoon’s church grounds.
Sneaky
.

He yanked open the refrigerator. There stood the birthday cake he’d baked earlier that day while Liam napped. One cake for one year older, and he couldn’t stand the thought. The way Liam liked to talk, next year’s birthday party might be
en memoriam
. To hell with that. Kevin grabbed up the cake and exited through the back door. He clambered over a rock wall into the pasture he let the neighbor’s sheep graze, took aim, and heaved the cake against the water trough. It splattered with a moist popping sound. He reclimbed the wall while soft hoof steps whooshed through the grass behind him.

Tomorrow it would be as if the cake had never existed, and he didn’t feel any better for it.

Liam Donellan’s journal

My magpie son, hovering over me, taking care of me, little knowing that all those years ago you saved me. That day is clear as crystal. My broken hand throbbed, and a tiny orphanage boy stared after the couple that had just rejected him. You were too young for that kind of heartbreak, and I knew this, too, to be my fault.

So I stooped and held out my arms for this little boy—you—and you picked up a red coloring pen on your approach. Maybe you saw despair you thought you could heal, pretending to be Jesus to whom the nuns prayed? By then, I was sitting on the ground. You perched on my left thigh and pulled the plaster cast that protected my hand onto your lap. The first thing you drew, a happy face. So simple. You looked up at me, hesitant and watchful, and of course I said, “That’s lovely.” Only then did you smile. A wavering and shaky attempt, to be sure, because the initial loss was still there and deeper than I could heal, but Christ was I going to try to erase the disillusionment, prevent it from appearing again. I’m still trying, all these years later.

Kevin, you’re the one person in this world hardest to help. Maybe this is the tragedy of fathers and sons, I don’t know.

• 13 •

Danny parked his grumbling Peugeot in front of Liam’s house and heaved himself out of the car. He stood for a moment, breathing in the scents of gasoline exhaust, damp sheep wool, and Atlantic tang.

Kevin rounded the corner of the house. “Thought I heard your sorry excuse for a ride.”

Tension pinched the skin around his friend’s eyes and a whiff of alcohol musk rose off him.

“You look like the bad end of a cow,” Danny said.

“You don’t look much better. Come on, let me pour us both something.”

Danny shook his head, then nodded. He sneezed as they stepped into the living room. Liam’s head popped around the side of his head rest. “Ah, Danny boy, looking like you’ve been ground under a butcher’s mallet.”

Too true on this crap of a day, which had started with conciliatory dough making and ended with fingerprint powder clouding Danny’s vision, clogging his nose, and coating his throat.

Danny stood blinking at the hearth fire, unsure how to proceed. He thought about Kevin as Clarkson’s—and the O’Briens’—favorite suspect. Below the surface of him, Kevin was softer than a stuffed lamb. Brawling was one thing, killing quite another, not that Danny could say this to Clarkson.

“Ah hell, hit me with it twice then,” he said and dropped into Kevin’s chair.

Kevin retreated to the kitchen to fetch the whiskey.

“What’s on with you? Is Ellen OK?” Danny read the misgivings in Liam’s half-smile, then the decision to go ahead with the next query. “The children, they’re fine?”

“I don’t know what
fine
is anymore. Seems like time should have healed something between Ellen and me.”

“For shite, that. Time could give a damn.”

“That’s a font of dire wisdom—thank you kindly.”

“My pleasure,” Liam said. “Always try to help.”

Kevin arrived with a bottle and three glasses. He pulled up a dining chair from across the room and sat between Liam and Danny. The cozy silence the three of them usually inhabited felt estranged. His fault, Danny knew, for arriving with weighted conscience. He swallowed half the whiskey Kevin handed him, feeling Liam’s gaze on him.

“I suppose I could use your advice, as usual. Only not about my marriage.”

Liam settled back in his chair, sipping his whiskey. “Go on then.”

“A case came in today not of the usual drug-addled sort. I should say an important case, and I could do with a promotion. Maybe if I progress in my professional life, Ellen will take heart and progress with her sadness. The good thing is that I’m in charge of the case—”

“Cheers to that.” Kevin drank and poured himself another shot.

“The problem,” Danny continued, “is that I already don’t like the direction the case is going. You might say it involves family. You might say I’m torn between loyalty and duty. So what do I do?”

Liam and Kevin stared at him. They didn’t utter a word, didn’t drink, didn’t move. Kevin’s face reddened. After a long pause, Liam set aside his tumbler. “It seems to me,” he said, “that we can only do what feels sane to do. It’s unfortunate that sanity is a slippery slope.”

Kevin reared back in his chair, almost toppling over. “Out with it already. Who’s itching after my balls now?”

“Do you have something on your mind?” Danny said.

“I can tell you what’s on Kevin’s mind.” Liam pointed at himself. “Me. He’s as transparent as sunshine through spiderwebs, that he is. And, he’s also worried he’s made the neighbor’s sheep sick.”

Danny drained his glass and poured himself another dram. Liam and Kevin’s relationship had always fascinated him. Their loyalty to each other was fierce, the kind that used up most of their emotional reserves. Whereas some ignorant pricks proclaimed Kevin bent, Danny had long ago ceased to rib him about his bachelor ways. The man didn’t have the energy for a full-fledged relationship, not with Liam there to soak up his affection—and vice versa.

On the other hand, Kevin
would
marry someday given proper timing and nurturance, maybe even to Emma. He was a man who fared ill on his own, an orphanage boy through and through. Product of the nuns, even down to the way he glided when he walked.

Liam’s caw of a laugh brought Danny back to the scene at hand. He’d missed their back-and-forth but now caught Liam’s, “Did you think I wouldn’t spy on you after you left the room in a sulk? Imagine, Danny boy, he fed my birthday cake to the sheep because I asked him to make nice with that Merrit lass. God forbid I help him with his rat-arsed social life.”

Danny’s ears stretched in Liam’s direction. “You know Merrit Chase?”

“Not at all.”

“Marcus seems keen on her,” Danny said, “but I swear she’s already wrecking my head. I’m fetching ice. Any for you?”

They shook their heads and waved him on with mannerisms so similar anyone would think they were biologically related. In the kitchen, Danny leaned into the freezer. Merrit Chase. In the plaza with Marcus. At the party. At the crime scene. He’d bet she had more to do with Lonnie’s death than Kevin—little good that did his friend.

He checked the batteries in his microrecorder and made ready to tackle Kevin.