Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (18 page)

“I feel that way sometimes when I’m looking in the mirror,” she said, “that if I were to touch the surface it would melt, and I’d touch fingertips with that mirror self, and maybe she’d be younger or older. Myself in another time.”

“Aye, mirrors are sometimes eerie that way. Pat used to swear he could see our grandda’ in one.”

“Brendan?” she asked, mesmerized by the way the soft, growing light lent more and more detail to Casey, and yet shrouded the rest of the room with a ghostly hand.

“Aye, Brendan. Pat scared da’ an’ I with his imaginins’ at times. He’d fix his eyes just beyond ye, as though he could see through ye to someone that wasn’t there an’ yet more there, if ye’ll take my meanin’, than yer own self was. An’ when we’d ask him what he was lookin’ at, he’d just say ‘tis only grandda’, don’t get yer ballocks in a twist.’ Well, that right unnerved daddy ‘cause it’s what his own da’ used to say to him when he’d get upset over small things, an’ Pat had no real way of knowin’ that.”

‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
   She quoted softly.

“Sometimes, Jewel, I think that’s too true for comfort’s sake.” He looked off out the window towards dawn, seeming suddenly weary.

“You need to sleep,” she said.

“Aye,” he said on the rise of a yawn, “I suppose I do at that.”

Moments later he was asleep, and she moved quietly about the room, tidying up, banking the fire against the chill of the night. Casey snored lightly, ghosts forgotten, the bones of his memories once again buried deep. His face was relaxed, one arm thrown above his head, the other stretched out on her side of the blankets. She hoped he was having pleasant dreams, enough for the both of them.

She knew finding her in the water had disturbed him. Always she had loved the ocean, which for a man who viewed the sea as one of the lesser circles of hell, was admittedly a little hard to understand. For her it was both baptism and redemption, a cleansing of spirit that nothing else could give her.

Once, when she was very young, her father had taken her to Nantucket for a holiday and they’d watched the sunset hissing into the ocean and he’d told her that they stood on the very edge of the new world. She had been frightened, believing she was going to fall off that edge, knowing in a visceral way that if she began the fall it would never end. So he’d tipped her head back so she could right herself and find her balance in the night sky.

Through a million years of dust that turned the sky bloody, one star had glimmered, a faint beacon from another time, reassuring in its very distance. She’d watched it, a quiet messenger of the infinite, steadying her breath with its brightening aura against the paling backwash of night. Then realized that it was getting larger, leaving a fire mist trail in its wake.

“Daddy it’s falling,” she’d said, remembering the horrible panic that had seized her entire body at the realization, the weakness in the knees, the tightness in the chest, the blood falling away from the brain.

“Make a wish,” he’d said, face rapt, not noticing her terror.

She’d wished, with teeth clenched and heart pounding, that the damn star would quit falling, but of course it hadn’t. It had plunged into the sea, its fiery trail no more than a vague, fuzzy outline on her cornea. And she had known then that the world was not a safe place, that wishes did not always come true, that nothing lasted forever.

“Just think,” her father had said, eyes still on the heavens, “of all the stars that have fallen, the sea is full of them. Such a fall from grace, from the heavens to the deeps in seconds.”

The idea had taken hold in her young mind, the romance of it not lost on her youth. She never entered the sea without remembering that around her flowed the remnants of stars that had fallen from favor of the Divine.

It comforted her somehow to know that as she lay there the sediment of dead stars washed over her, that in her they again knew a form of life, of flaming through the cosmos, never knowing where the trajectory would land one. And that through those same dead stars, long quenched, she would again know life long after her own death. There was continuity in such knowledge. Sometimes it was enough to know these things and breathe, to merely exist. It could take away the stain of yesterday, the grime of everyday life, the pain of a week ago Tuesday. At least long enough to allow her to catch her breath and meet her husband’s eyes without shame.

The bedroom in the Brookline apartment had been lit with candles, and every luxury had been attended to. Of course, one would never expect less of Lovett Hagerty. The bed, a cloud adrift in a blue carpet sky without stars. He’d plied her with champagne, which she’d drunk, desperately wishing it were whiskey, something that would shear the edge off her nerves and blot out the smell of his cologne and the smoothness of his skin against her own.

She’d hoped, foolishly, she supposed, that he’d talk before the inducement of the pillows, but he’d been intent on one thing and one thing only.

And she, smiling, had put her soul in a corner, and given it to him.

The betrayal had not gone deep enough for him though, he had wanted more, wanted emotion to go along with the body. Then she had understood, Love had wanted what she gave to her husband, he had wanted the emotion of response. She only hoped her imitation of it had fooled him.

She shivered. Rose had been right. There were, indeed, ghosts all around, and not all were dead.

She turned from the window and saw pale fingers of light stealing through beneath the curtains, outlining Casey in a rosy-gold corona. He’d turned over onto his stomach and the scars on his back were faintly luminescent, borrowing light from both morning and the fire. The just curling ends of his hair, stiff with salt, rose in clockwise whorls away from his scalp. Sleep’s restorative hand had smoothed the lines of worry from his face. He looked so vulnerable and she felt a fierce surge of protectiveness come over her at the sight of him. Whatever she’d done to keep him safe had been worth it and she would not regret it, she would do whatever was necessary to keep him alive and whole. He stirred beneath her gaze, half-rising on an elbow, looking up at her, voice rough and tender with sleep.

“Come back to bed, Jewel, ye look as though ye could use the warmin’.”

“In a minute,” she said quietly, knowing he’d drop back to sleep instantly. She glanced out the window one last time, where the sea surged against the shore, giving and taking in one swift movement. Continuity, here long before she had drawn her first breath, here long after she had drawn her last. But for now she would take the allotment of time given to her and love the man in the bed behind her without impediments or guilt, knowing that without her sin he would not be here to love.

She could feel the heat of his body the minute she slid under the blankets. He rolled over, arm tucking her to him instinctively, hand curving across her belly.

“Ye alright, darlin’?” he asked sleepily, bestowing a kiss on the back of her neck.

She stroked the forearm that lay protectively about her.

“I’m just cold,” she said.

THE BUILDING WASN’T SO DIFFERENT from her own. A little more rundown and desperately in need of paint, but the same basic layout. A three decker with sagging windowsills and cracked sidewalks, where weeds grew through the seams. Dandelion fluff floated in the humid air and there was the slightest hint of salt wind off the Point.

A shattered nameplate stated that E. Malone lived on the second floor. Pamela tried the buzzer, found it was broken and so tried the door. It too was broken and swung open the minute she put her hand to the knob. Security was obviously not a priority.

The building stunk inside of stale, greasy cooking, and cat urine. The stairs leading up to the top two floors were canted to the left and covered with filthy green indoor-outdoor carpeting.

E. Malone, the nameplate had stated, was in unit number 4. It was on the right-hand side, a lime green door whose battered surface testified to the fact that it had once been red. Pamela took a deep breath and knocked, waiting for what seemed a small eternity before hearing a slow shuffle on the other side of the door.

The woman who answered the door could have been thirteen or thirty; she had the small-breasted, slim-hipped androgyny that was so loved by the fashion industry. A slimness accentuated by the boy’s tank shirt she wore. Once you got a glimpse of her face, though, you saw your mistake clearly. Over thirty with the eyes of eighty. A photojournalist she knew called that look ‘the thousand yard stare’. He had seen it plenty in Vietnam. People who’d simply seen and done too much.

A mop of badly cut pale gold hair framed a face with cut-glass cheekbones and hostile amber eyes. You want somethin’, lady?” The voice was hard, dragging the last word out into an insult.

“I’m looking for Emma Malone,” Pamela replied, hoping she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.

“You’re lookin’ at her. Hey,” the door opening narrowed a little, “you that bitch from DYS keeps callin’ here?”

“No,” Pamela answered hastily, “I’m here about Love Hagerty.”

The door stayed where it was.

“How do you know Love?” Emma’s face was hard and the tone of voice no less so.

“I work for him,” Pamela answered, her own tone even but not friendly.

Emma gave a bitter little grin. “You must be the one I been hearin’ rumors about. Heard the bastard was smitten with someone else’s wife, heard she had a face on her like an angel. Can’t be two of you wanderin’ around lookin’ like that so I figure it must be you.” The door opened, “You wanna’ come in, or you gonna stand out there all day?” She turned and wandered back into the dishevelled apartment, as though it made very little difference to her what Pamela did.

“So what’s Love want? Gotta say his messenger service has gone uptown in a big way,” Emma flicked a jaded glance over Pamela’s pale linen outfit.

“I didn’t come on behalf of Love. He’s got no idea I’m here, actually.” She took a deep breath, “He thinks I’m home sick with ‘women troubles’.”

Emma snorted. “Yeah that’d keep the squeamish bastard from getting too curious. So what d’you do for him?”

“Public relations.”

“Yeah, I could see where he’d need some help there.” The woman went to the fridge, opening it and glancing idly inside it. “You like workin’ for him?”

“He’s not so bad, though he’s under the impression he’s next to Jesus in this neighborhood,” Pamela said mildly. Emma gave a short bark of laughter, face an unhealthy gray in the light issuing out of the refrigerator. She was terribly thin.

“Well he ain’t no savior, but I guess you could say he looks after people,” she said, taking two icy beers from the fridge and popping the caps off on the bottle opener attached to the edge of the counter. “Like a pimp looks after his hookers.” She shrugged, handing one of the stubby bottles to Pamela, “He’s a way of life here, people don’t know any different from Love. Not so many nice, white urbans looking to get in this neighborhood, and most of us,” she sat, hooking her legs over a stool, “forgot long time ago that we ever wanted out. So what exactly do you want with me?”

“I came to talk to you about my husband.”

Emma’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Can’t say I know him. Pretty sure I didn’t bang him—so what’s the problem?”

“Casey Riordan is my husband.”

Emma tilted her head, a thick lock of golden hair sliding over her eyes. “That the big one, real tall, dark, looks like he’d be hell between the sheets, but the kind of hell a woman’d gladly burn in ‘bout ten times a week?”

“Yes,” Pamela replied dryly, “that would be my husband. And I know you were friends with him Emma. He told me everything.”

“Yeah, that so? Wouldn’t be so sure about that, lady.”

“He told me about the murder of your friend up in New Hampshire,” she said softly, but there was no warmth in her tone.

“What’s your point?” Emma was feigning nonchalance, but a small vein beat rapidly in the thin skin of her throat.

“You must have thought he was a real chump. The situation looked a little too pat to him though. He checked into just who owned the property where Rosemary died. Turned out the man who owned it was your father’s former partner, John Mullins. And then I got thinking about how a girl with a cop for a father and teacher for a mother ends up on the streets. So I went to see Mr. Mullins. Turns out he remembers you really well Emma, and
very
fondly I might add.”

“You got a real nerve coming in here and—”

Pamela cut her off, “No I think you’re the one with the real nerve here, Emma. I’ve done a little homework, studied your past, and suddenly it’s looking to me like you’re not so much a victim as a manipulator. John Mullins was your father’s partner and best friend. Best man at your parent’s wedding; you even called him Uncle John. You set out to seduce him. He left his wife and three kids for you. You wrecked his life and then dropped him like a hot potato. So then I ask myself why you’d do such a thing.”

“Yeah, so what? I was only eighteen, he shoulda known better. Besides that’s all ancient history.”

Pamela shook her head slowly and then took the picture from her pocket that John Mullins had given her, in an attempt to exorcise himself of the ghosts he’d been haunted by these many years. She put it on the table and slid it over where Emma could clearly see it. This time she knew she didn’t imagine the flinch.

“History has a funny way of catching up with a person, Emma. Particularly when a crime is involved. You see, when a cop gets murdered that really never becomes history for his colleagues. They take it fairly personally, and they have long memories.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Emma said, but her hand kept compulsively smoothing the hair around her ear.

“Don’t you? Look at the picture Emma. Lieutenant Robert O’Donnell. A good honest cop. And maybe one of the only ones with enough courage to attempt to break the stranglehold Love Hagerty has over Southie. Disappeared one autumn on a hunting trip up in New Hampshire. In the White Mountains somewhere. They never did find his remains, but I’ve got to wonder if they might show up if the police were to excavate John Mullins’ property. What do you think Emma?”