“No problem,” Carson said. They drove back to the precinct, and Jenn waved a hasty goodbye to Carson, her mind already on vacation. Carson sat at his desk far into the evening, facts and theories doing their endless tumble in his head.
It could still be jealousy on Miriam’s part. Maybe she found out that Ben had another girlfriend. That combined with his penchant for hitting her might equal a breakdown bad enough to kill. But crimes of jealousy usually took the form of gunshots or stab wounds, not murder by arson. A woman would have had to be pretty damn pissed off to douse a man with fire propellant and torch him.
But that still didn’t quite work. If Miriam had poured lighter fluid on Ben, there would be other evidence. It didn’t make any sense.
* * *
The next break came in the form of an abandoned vehicle report, a motorcycle licensed to Jack Byrne found abandoned on the side of 11 Mile Road near Crooks, scratched and damaged as if the rider had laid it down. A canvass of the houses in the immediate area where the bike was found produced one witness, Betsy Willis, a 74 year-old widow living alone in the second-floor apartment across the street.
“Oh my, that was quite a show!” Betsy exclaimed with unabashed excitement. “I was watching my shows--this was quite late you know, I can’t sleep much these days. And anyways, I saw this…oh how would you describe it…it was like a glow, like something was on fire outside. So I went to look and see what it was, because if it was a fire I would have to find Mister Wiggles, my cat. He’s old too, you know, and he doesn’t move around so good, like me. Well I’m sure you don’t want to know about Mister Wiggles. I went to the window, this one right here, and would you believe what I saw? It was a girl, detective. I swear I’m telling you the truth. I may be old, but I know what I saw. It was a girl, and she was on fire. Or no, that came later. When I first saw her, she was just…glowing. Her skin, I mean. And, my goodness, it was so bright, it lit up the whole street. It was raining something fierce that night, and I was worried about her. But she wasn’t walking on the sidewalk, she was just strolling down the middle of the road, and cars were going around her, honking their horns and such.
“Of course, no one stopped to see if the poor girl was alright, and you know I would have gone out there, but at my age, I would have caught pneumonia, wouldn’t you know that’s just my luck. Well, as I was watching, a motorcycle comes zipping down the street and almost hits her, but he swerved at the last second, and that wasn’t the smartest thing to do, what with the pouring rain. His back tire went out from under him and he lost control, and I was sure he was going to die, and I think he would have, if it wasn’t for that girl. Now, this is where things get exciting, detective, and I’m sure you won’t believe me, but I saw what I saw, and it’s all God’s truth, so help me. She must have known the boy on the motorcycle, because she ran up to him and took him in her arms, and I could see her shaking her head. I think she loved that boy, that’s my feeling, but you wouldn’t be interested in that. He was hurt badly, that poor boy, and I wouldn’t believe what happened next if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. She bent over him, and the glowing of her skin got brighter, so bright I had to look away, like…oh, like she had the sun inside her, as odd as that sounds. And wouldn’t you know, that strange glow moved from her into him and spread out, and I think it must have healed him. And then a fancy red sport car comes squealing to a stop and this big guy with dark hair gets out and starts yelling.
“Oh, it made me so angry to watch how he treated that poor girl. My Frank, God rest his soul, would have gone out there and given that boy a piece of his mind, I’ll tell you, but Frank has been gone these ten years, rest him. Well. He grabbed that girl by the arm and yanked her away so that boy who was hurt hit his head on the street, and the girl, oh she didn’t like that one bit, I’ll tell you. She was acting like she’d had just about enough of that guy with the fancy car, that’s what it looked like to me, at any rate. She shoved him away, and they were arguing, you could see that from the way they were standing, you know. She must have said something that made the boy with the dark hair upset, because he started after her like he was going to hit her, and then, if you’ll believe it, the girl burst into flames. I swear, detective, I swear on my very soul. She just went poof, and her whole body was on fire. But she wasn’t burning, like someone had put a match to her, it was like…oh goodness, like the fire was part of her, if that makes any sense. I don’t know, detectives. That’s what I saw. Well that seemed to scare the angry one, because he got into his car and drove away. The other boy, the one who crashed his motorcycle, he was just fine, which he shouldn’t have been, because I’ve seen wrecks like that before and people die from injuries like he must’ve had. Well, he and the girl were standing together in the rain and they kissed, and oh my, was that ever romantic.
“This is the weirdest part, though, because then the fire that was coming from the girl got really bright and then they both just vanished, just like that handsome magician, what’s his name from the book…David Copperfield. Only, they were really gone. It was no trick, I swear. I watched out the window for a long time, but nothing else happened. They were just gone, and that motorcycle stayed there by the side of the road for awhile until someone came and took it away.”
Carson felt out of breath just listening to the old woman talk, because she never seemed to pause to breathe. But her story, however unbelievable it may have sounded, struck Carson as making a very strange kind of sense.
Another piece of the puzzle rattled around in his brain with the others. The pieces were going to fall into place before long, something told him. He just needed a few more facts, a few more witnesses. And of course, he had to find Miriam and get her side of the story.
Chapter 12: Then
Miriam tugged the hem of her dress, trying to get it closer to her knees. She wasn’t used to wearing dresses, especially not ones this…skimpy. She was comfortable in her waitress uniform, a pair of black jeans and a bar T-shirt.
“Stop fidgeting, Miriam. You look amazing,” Jack whispered in her ear.
“I look like a skank,” she whispered back. The dress barely came to mid-thigh, and the filmy coral-colored material was cut low between her breasts, showing a strip of skin nearly to her navel, and was cut the same in the back. She had bought it because Jack had liked it the best. Modeling it for him in the dressing room and her apartment before they left, that was one thing. His hungry, admiring gaze had made her feel sexy and beautiful, and he’d spent half the drive to the church telling her how lovely she looked. But that hadn’t prepared her for the looks she’d gotten from Jack’s family when they’d walked in to take their seats on the hard wooden pews of the church.
“You do not,” Jack said, a little too loudly. “My cousin Shannon, now she looks likes a skank, but then, she is one.”
Miriam slapped his arm, shocked that he’d talk about his own cousin like that. She tried to spot who he was talking about, and he nodded behind them, at a short, voluptuous girl with elaborately-coiffured black hair coming down the aisle to take her seat on the bride’s side. She was wearing a pale red dress even shorter than Miriam’s, and pushed her large breasts up to nearly overflowing. Miriam’s eyes widened a little, and Jack sputtered, trying to contain his laughter.
“She is a skank, Miriam. She’s my cousin, and I love her, but that guy she’s dragging with her is the third boyfriend she’s had in the last six months. She goes through men faster than she does outfits.” Miriam was giving him a disapproving glare, so he lifted his hands in a defensive gesture. “I tell her she’s a skank to her face and she calls me a fancy-nancy bastard, and we laugh. It’s how we are.”
“You insult each other?”
“Well, yeah. We tease each other. It’s how we show love in our family.” Jack shrugged. “I guess it’s weird, now that I think about it, but it’s just the way we are. We don’t mean any harm by it, and we know it.”
“I don’t get it. Will they tease me?” They were whisper
ing now, because the priest was rising from his seat and approaching the lectern. The organist played the “Wedding March” and everyone stood to watch Jack’s younger sister Mary stride with slow, measured steps down the aisle.
Jack answered without taking his eyes off his sister. “Not right away, no. But the more time you spend with us, yeah, someone will probably tease you about something, just to see how you take it. It’ll probably be either Gramps or my cousin Joe. Just remember they don’t mean nothin’ by it, and they expect you to rib ‘em back. The better you can tease and be teased in our family, the better you fit in. If you can keep up with Joey, everyone’ll know you belong.”
Mary was a beautiful girl, resplendent in a simple but stunning A-line dress and long veil covering her shimmering auburn hair. She took her place beside her fiance, clasped his hands in hers and fixed her eyes on him. Miriam, only a few rows back, could see the bride swallowing, fighting back tears already. Miriam wondered what it would be like, to stand there, like that, in a white dress, facing a man she loved, promising to stay with him forever. She just couldn’t picture it. She stole a glance at Jack, who was watching his soon-to-be brother-in-law with an odd expression on his face. Jack turned to look at Miriam at the same moment, and their eyes met; Miriam couldn’t help picturing Jack in a tuxedo, watching her walk down the aisle to him–
Miriam clamped down on that image with a ruthless ferocity.
He’d shown up at her door, unannounced as always, early on a Sunday morning. He took her to breakfast, told her his sister was getting married the next weekend, and he wanted Miriam to come with him as his date. She objected that she didn’t really have any wedding-appropriate clothes, and Jack had just smirked, that little knowing smile of his that both irritated her and made her smile back.
“I thought we could go shopping,” he’d said. “I don’t really have a suit either, so we could make a day out of it.” He wanted to take her shopping? What guy voluntarily did that? Of course, she’d agreed, and Jack had taken her to Somerset, followed her to a dozen stores and watched her try on a thousand dresses, telling her he liked them all. Eventually she’d tried a dress on at Forever 21, and when she’d come out to show him, his jaw had loosened, not quite actually dropping open, and he’d approached her with adventurous hands.
“Get this one,” he’d told her, whispering in her ear as he kissed the bare skin of her shoulder where it met her neck, tickling her. She’d gotten that one, just for his reaction. Then, just because guys were so irritating, he’d browsed through the racks at the first store they’d entered, tried on one suit, and bought it. Of course, it fit perfectly, making him look like a model with his messy hair and limpid blue eyes.
Now they were at the wedding itself and she was wishing she’d gotten a dress that wasn’t quite so…revealing. She loved Jack’s reaction to it, but she also felt the eyes of other men, and that was uncomfortable. A grab here and there by drunk customers at the bar, that was one thing, but to draw the attention of every guy within a twenty foot radius was something different.
Jack seemed to sense her discomfort, for he told her, halfway through the long, unfamiliar Catholic service, “It’s not just the dress that’s making everyone look, Miriam. It’s you. You’re absolutely stunning. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of my cousins hit on you.” He seemed to have an endless supply of cousins. “Don’t worry, I’ll fight ‘em off.”
“No! No fighting, Jack.” She was worried what she would do if there was another fight.
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Not literally fight them. Just keep them from stealing you. That thing with John, that was…an old argument a long time in the making.” He didn’t seem to want to tell her about it, and she didn’t pry, although she was curious, having gleaned the basics from the argument itself.
The service finally ended, and Miriam gladly followed Jack out into the sunlight, stretching her legs after the hours-long ceremony. She offered her congratulations to the bride and groom, holding Jack’s arm, shook hands with an endless bevy of cousins and aunts and uncles, most of whom referred to him as “Jackie.”
When they were in his car following the caravan to the reception, he remarked, “I hate being called Jackie. They all do it just because they know it drives me nuts.”
“So I shouldn’t call you, Jackie, then?” Miriam teased.
“I’d rather you not, but if you really want to…”
She pretended to consider. “Hmmm. I think I like it, though. Jackie. It’s cute.” She pinched his cheek, and he batted her hand away.
“Yeah, you’ll fit in, no problem,” he laughed. “God, I never should’ve said anything.”
The reception was enormous. There were at least 500 people between Jack’s family and the groom’s, and all of them were Irish, it seemed, and they all had drinks in their hands, dancing straight through from cocktail hour to the dinner itself, and even during dinner there were people dancing. Jack escorted her to their table near the wedding party where they were sitting with his brothers John and William, and the groom’s brother and sister. He sat her down and vanished, reappearing with drinks in moments.
He leaned in and whispered, “How do you want me to introduce you? My friend? Just Miriam?”
She shook her head. “I’m your girlfriend, Jack. Introduce me as that.” If only he knew how much trust it was taking for her to say that.
He grinned, giddy as a schoolboy. “I was hoping you’d say that, but I didn’t want to assume.” He made the rounds of introductions, not quite but almost emphasizing the words “this is my girlfriend.” He seemed proud of the fact that Miriam was with him, and that in itself was disconcerting. Ben had never taken her anywhere important except once, to a Marine Corps unit reunion dinner, and he had seemed almost ashamed of her, never introducing her, barely touching her, flirting with the other men’s girls in a way that had pissed nearly everyone off and embarrassed Miriam to tears.
She pushed away the thoughts, telling herself to stop comparing them. Jack was a world away from Ben. She had broken up with Ben for good, and things were going to change. She drank freely, keeping up with Jack, who seemed to unwind a bit, letting himself get tipsy. She felt her wariness increasing as the night progressed and Jack got sloppier. She was waiting for the shift, she realized. He’d get drunk, do or say something to ruin the whole thing. It always happened, and he would be no exception.
But he didn’t. He stayed at her side, introduced her to his family, dragged her onto the dance floor. He acted ridiculous, dancing with such abandon, if not skill, that she couldn’t help but relax and join him, letting her own buzz take over.
Halfway through the first slow dance song, Jack’s grandfather tapped him on the shoulder. “Can I steal a dance with your lovely date, Jackie-boy?” Miriam took Séan’s huge, calloused, wrinkled hand in hers, felt herself led away from Jack. “So, miss Miriam, did you take my advice, then?”
“Yes Mister Byrne, I did, actually. I’m here as Jack’s girlfriend, this time, not just a friend.”
“Och, no one was fooled by that line, girlie. You may have been foolin’ yourself, but not us. And call me Gramps, please. I’m old fashioned that way, and I like you.”
“I like you too…Gramps.” It sounded odd, but not uncomfortable, to call this kind old man Gramps. She had never known her own grandparents.
“Did Jackie tell you about my Second Sight?” Gramps asked.
“He did mention something, yes. What is it? He couldn’t explain it very well.”
Gramps guffawed and shook his head. “Oh, he was being coy, he was. He knows damned well what is. He’s got it himself, he just won’t believe it. He don’t believe what he can’t see. Second Sight is like prophecy. Gettin’ a glimpse of the future, like. Comes from havin’ the Blood of the Niall.” He looked down at Miriam, and his gaze was penetrating and serious. “I look at you, dear, and I see a girl who ain’t just what she seems. You don’t know yourself, darlin’, and that’ll get you into trouble.
You can’t shy away from what y’are. I ain’t sayin’ I know what you are, but you’re something’ special, and that’s God’s own truth.”
Miriam was strangely shaken by his words. They danced through the end of the song, and she stood still when it ended, still holding his hand. “I’m just me, Gramps,” she whispered.
“No, child. You’re more.” He smiled, and kissed her cheek, his whiskers scratching her face, whiskey on his breath. He handed her back to Jack, and took a seat.
“What’d Gramps say this time?” Jack wanted to know.
Miriam shook her head, not sure how to respond. “He…nothing. The truth.”
“Which, then?” Sometimes, when his accent showed through, he sounded just like his grandfather.
“Don’t worry about it, Jack. He just told me about the Second Sight a bit.”
Miriam felt something cold strike her chest, a sense of dread creeping through her. Jack’s face was hard, suddenly, and angry. She turned around to see Ben in his full dress uniform standing less than a foot away.
“I wasn’t invited?” Ben’s voice was low and heavy with threat. “That’s insulting. Miriam is my girlfriend, after all.”
Miriam wanted to take a step back, away from his jealousy-maddened eyes. “What are you doing here, Ben? Do you remember what I told you, last time I saw you?” She put every ounce of steel and threat she had into her voice.
Ben flashed a humorless, arrogant grin. “You think you can sneak around behind my back without me finding out? You’re not so hard to follow, you know. And as for your threat? You won’t do anything. Not here. There’s nothing you hate so much as making a scene. And you wouldn’t want to be embarrassed in front of all these people, would you?” He gestured to the crowd of people around them, some watching the unfolding drama, others still oblivious.
“Come on, Ben,” Jack said, his voice calm but hard. “Not here, man. Not at my sister’s wedding. Trust me, pal, this isn’t the wedding you want to crash.” Jack stepped in front of Miriam, shielding her. She felt Gramps and John and William all floating up to stand by Jack.
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