by Dicey Deere
Inspector O’Hare told him.
“As expected.” Mr. Callaghan sounded depressed. “So I suppose…” His voice drifted tiredly away. He nodded to Winifred Moore and Sheila Flaxton. His glance strayed to the kettle steaming on the two-burner. Inspector O’Hare raised an eyebrow at Sergeant Bryson, who grinned, asked, “Tea?” and filled a mug for Mr. Callaghan. Mr. Callaghan nervously plunged his umbrella into the brass stand and accepted the tea with, Inspector O’Hare noticed, a shaking hand. Obviously Mr. Callaghan was not in top form.
The door was flung open. “Damn and hell!” Luke Willinger said impatiently as the door, driven by a gust of wind, slammed back against the wall. He yanked it closed and looked around. “Hello! What’s this, a tea party? I thought I’d better report—I’m looking for Ms. Tunet. Her car’s still at the castle, but she’s disappeared. Anybody here seen her?” Mr. Willinger’s jaw was tense, his eyes worried. He wore a black knitted cap and a red plastic raincoat over a black turtlenecked sweater with gray wool pants and heavy country shoes. “Damn and blast! I’ve looked for her on the hills and in the woods, even in O’Malley’s Pub.”
“Maybe she took the bus to Dublin,” Winifred Moore said, “working with those conference—”
“She’s not, for God’s sake! I called the Shelbourne. One of the delegates has laryngitis. There’s no meeting today.” Mr. Willinger looked frustrated and angry.
“I saw her,” Fergus Callaghan said, mug of tea in his shaky hand, “in the woods. A half-hour ago. I’d taken the bridle path on my motorbike. It’s a shorter way to Ballynagh from Dublin. She was near the little pond by the oaks. She was talking with a man.”
“What man?”
“Irish, by the stance of him, Irish somehow. I only saw his back. So I don’t—”
“You can’t tell if someone’s Irish by his back,” Sheila Flaxton said. “It’s prepost—”
“Shut up, Sheila,” Winifred Moore said. “Of course you can tell. I do believe that nationality, a specific culture, even a person’s class can be—”
Inspector O’Hare did not hear the rest of Winifred Moore’s comment. He was looking toward the door, which again had opened.
Maureen Devlin came in.
64
“What is it? I have to get back to O’Curry’s.” Maureen Devlin closed the door behind her and looked questioningly from Inspector O’Hare to the others. “And she isn’t even here!”
Inspector O’Hare blinked. “She? What she? I don’t understand, Mrs. Devlin.”
Maureen Devlin said slowly, “It’s like yesterday, isn’t it? All of you here.” She wore her shabby black dress, with a gray shawl against the rain, but she hadn’t even bothered with a scarf for her hair. Her face was pale and her damp, glinting, wavy brown hair brought the word tresses to the inspector’s mind. Botticelli. Another painter in his wife’s art books.
“She,” Maureen Devlin said, “the American, that young woman staying at Castle Moore. Ms. Tunet. She telephoned me at O’Curry’s. She asked could I come to the Ballynagh garda station.”
“Called you when?” Luke Willinger demanded.
“Maybe twenty minutes ago. Mr. O’Curry was busy with customers. I had my little girl there. I couldn’t leave her with no one to watch her; I had to call Mrs. Blake and then wait until…” She glanced at the wall clock. “She’ll be all right, but I can’t be too long. And there’s my pay to think of.”
“I’m sorry,” O’Hare said. He felt as though someone outside him were running his life. “I’m not sure exactly—” He broke off. The sound of a motorbike reached them from the quiet morning street. The sound seemed to fill the one-room garda station.
The sound stopped. A moment later two people came in, blown about, wet with rain, looking as though they’d had a violent confrontation; and with enmity like a sword between them.
To Inspector O’Hare they momentarily looked like a young Irish couple who had had a violent quarrel; he was used to that, a tale of drink and broken crockery. Except that the girl, in a figured bandanna tied under her chin, was Ms. Tunet. She had a red welt on her neck, and her mouth was swollen and her face bloodless, so that her black-lashed gray eyes looked huge. The young man in the torn black bomber jacket and bloodied T-shirt, and with a white freckled face and red hair, was Brian Coffey. He had a wicked-looking purple contusion on his forehead.
Ms. Tunet looked around. Her gaze came to rest on Maureen Devlin in the worn black dress and gray shawl. Ms. Tunet said, “Mrs. Devlin … Thank you for coming.” She lisped a little because of her swollen mouth. “I thought it was owed you to be here”—and at Maureen Devlin’s blank look—“to hear who killed Desmond Moore.”
* * *
Brian Coffey looked suddenly near collapse. Sergeant Bryson swiftly pushed forward the one sturdy chair left. Brian Coffey sank into it. He said shakily, as though in shock, “She spied on me! She stole my pistol! She’s a thief! She stole—”
“It kept you from killing me!” The lisp made it sound incongruously like “kissing me.” “Maybe I’m not the first person you—”
“She’s trying to frame me!” Brian Coffey flung out his hands in appeal to Inspector O’Hare. “She might’ve shot me! In the woods! Then she told me, ‘We’re going to Inspector O’Hare with this. You washed it a dozen times but there’ll be blood on it, on the handle and in the screws. Desmond Moore’s blood. It’s evidence you’re hiding. Evidence in a murder.’”
An umbrella fell with a clatter, making O’Hare jump. The tea kettle began again to whistle; an unknown hand abruptly shut it off. O’Hare was conscious of startled murmurs, of Sergeant Bryson at his elbow.
The inspector looked at Brian Coffey’s bruised face, “Mr. Coffey,” he said, “blood on what? What’s this about?”
At that, Ms. Tunet reached into one of the cavernous pockets of the drooping big mackintosh that hung almost down to her brogues. She pulled out something in a dirty cloth. “For your delectation and delight.” She winced as she moved her swollen lip. She unwrapped the object and laid it on the inspector’s desk. It was a meat knife, long and razor sharp. The handle had scalloped indentations to provide a good grip.
* * *
Brian Coffey plucked the wet T-shirt away from his chest; a rivulet of rain slid down one side of his opened bomber jacket. He said furiously, “She might’ve killed me! She was like on fire. I never saw a woman act that way. Not in Oughterard, not in Galway. Not even in Dublin.”
At O’Hare’s shoulder, Winifred Moore laughed.
“So then”—O’Hare leaned toward Brian Coffey—“this is the knife that killed Desmond Moore? Concealing evidence, were you, Mr. Coffey? Why? What’s this about your blood on the knife?”
Bran Coffey said angrily, “That was all true! Everything I told you yesterday! Mr. Desmond killing that Finnish man at the cottage. But I couldn’t tell you the rest. I couldn’t because he’d say I was lying, making it up! But now because of her”—and he turned and glared at Ms. Tunet.
“He?”
“The next day…” He stopped. “The next day…” He looked at Inspector O’Hare.
O’Hare gave him an encouraging nod and said kindly, “The next day, Mr. Coffey?”
Brian Coffey looked back at Inspector O’Hare as though the inspector had wrapped him in a cozy blanket; and then he told it as though he and Inspector O’Hare were alone, two friends in the snug of a firelit bar, O’Malley’s, maybe, confiding to each other over a jar or two.
“The next day, it got all strange.” He’d been in the stable office ordering supplies. It was afternoon, and Mr. Desmond came in and told him something bad had happened: Fergus Callaghan had found out about him killing the Finn. “Now Callaghan is trying to blackmail me,” Mr. Desmond said. “He wants ten thousand pounds.”
Brian had been frightened. He was involved. “How could Mr. Callaghan have found out?” he’d asked Mr. Desmond, and Mr. Desmond had laughed a bitter kind of laugh. “He’s close with Maureen Devlin, whore that sh
e is. Lovers aplenty she no doubt has. Fergus Callaghan, for one. She must have told him. They’ll share the blackmail money.” Then Mr. Desmond said that Fergus Callaghan had telephoned him. Fergus Callaghan was coming to Castle Moore at two o’clock to collect the money. “I’ll pay him off,” Mr. Desmond said, “I have no choice. I told him to come to the stables. I don’t want anybody at the castle seeing him. And I don’t want you here, Brian. You’re in too deep already.” Then he’d patted Brian’s shoulder and given him two tickets to the horse auction in Cork. “‘Take Kevin,’ he’d said. ‘You can leave at noon.’”
But Brian didn’t go to Cork. And he only sent Kevin to Flaherty’s Harness Shop with a list of the new supplies so he wouldn’t be at the stable, and he’d told Kevin to wait there at Flaherty’s for him to check over the stuff. Why didn’t he go to Cork? He didn’t know. But he’d felt something was off. He was scared, but he had to see. And he wanted Kevin by, not off in Cork.
So at half after one, Brian went up to the storage loft next to box four. It was musty, motes and dirt. He could hardly breathe. But he could see down into the stable.
“At two o’clock, Mr. Callaghan came.” But right off it was strange. Mr. Callaghan left his motorbike in the stable yard and came into the stable. Sun was slanting into the stable from the row of windows above the boxes. Kevin had swept, but there were bits of hay on the concrete floor. The horses in their stalls were as usual, a little stamping and snorting, otherwise quiet.
“Mr. Callaghan wore country clothes, a shirt and light jacket and tan duck pants. His bits of gray hair were blown about by the wind.
“‘What did you want to see me about?’ Mr. Callaghan asked Mr. Desmond, as though he hadn’t been the one to demand Mr. Desmond meet with him and pay him blackmail money.
“‘Just one or two little things, Mr. Callaghan,’ Mr. Desmond told him. ‘They don’t amount to much. For one, I seem to have misplaced a video. Irish Gardens, Twentieth Century. Did you happen across it when you were working in the library?’
“‘A video?’ Mr. Callaghan sounded surprised. ‘No, that I didn’t.’
“‘No? You didn’t by any chance happen to view the video?’
“Then Mr. Callaghan said something about how landscaping wasn’t one of his interests.
“‘So it isn’t,’ Mr. Desmond said back at him. ‘Well, then … a little shoe? In the library, did you happen across a little shoe? A doll’s size shoe? Black patent leather?’
“At that, Fergus Callaghan clenched his fists. ‘A little shoe? Yes, a little shoe!’ His voice went all high and funny. ‘A little shoe I found on your desk. God help you, Desmond Moore!’
“Then he called Mr. Desmond a pedo-something bastard, and he said, ‘Brian Coffey lied, didn’t he? Brian’s a nephew to Danny Devlin. Brian thinking to protect the reputation of his aunt, Maureen Devlin, and not shame the Devlin family. Bad enough to the Devlins that Maureen is bringing up Finola a Protestant.’
“Mr. Callaghan’s face had gone all flushed and fierce. He took a step toward Mr. Desmond. ‘I saw Finola bury the doll in the woods! The doll is in my bureau drawer in my bedroom on Boyleston Street in Dublin. With both shoes on.’
“Then Mr. Callaghan—he was standing with his fists all clenched at his sides—Mr. Callaghan said in a funny voice, ‘I know what Lars Kasvi saw through the cottage window.’”
“No! Please!” Maureen Devlin’s voice rang through the station. “Stop!” She took a step toward Brian Coffey. “Stop!” Her fists were clenched to her chest; her face was agonized.
65
Sergeant Bryson moved quickly forward and took Maureen Devlin’s arm. “Mrs. Devlin.” She gave him an anguished look. “No!”
But she let him lead her back to the wooden bench beside the Coke machine. She sank down and put her fingers to her temples. Fergus Callaghan, beside her on the bench, was a stone image, eyes fixed on Brian Coffey.
Inspector O’Hare felt in the silence something almost tangible, a screen with the words pedo-something bastard and doll and doll’s shoe floating across it. I saw Finola bury the doll in the woods. Finola, Maureen’s little girl. Yes, even in Ballynagh. He glanced around. Winifred Moore, in her dramatic cape, looked fascinated, her russet color high, her eyes gleaming, Shelia Flaxton stood biting the handle of her umbrella, while Luke Willinger was looking toward Ms. Tunet, as though hoping to catch her eye.
As for Ms. Tunet, she was chewing one end of her bandanna, which O’Hare noticed at this odd moment, had a motif of peacocks. Turquoise. She shot a glance, somehow resigned, toward Luke Willinger and mouthed what looked to Inspector O’Hara like, “Oh, hell!”
“I’m afraid,” Inspector O’Hare said kindly to Maureen Devlin, “Mr. Coffey will have to continue. If you would care to leave, Mrs. Devlin? Sergeant Bryson will be glad to escort—”
She cut him off with a wave of her hand, as though she were pulling aside a veil from before her face. Lovely blue eyes, clean jaw, sadness and forbearance. Funny, the things you notice about a person you’ve seen so often before. Odd. He turned to Brian Coffey. “Go on, Mr. Coffey.”
So then, Brian Coffey went on. “Mr. Desmond in a nasty way called Mr. Callaghan a fool, an imaginative fool. ‘You don’t know what Lars Kasvi saw through the window,’ he said, ‘it is all nothing.’
“Then Mr. Desmond turned his back on Mr. Callaghan. He was holding his riding crop in his hand. He cracked it down on the half-door of Black Pride’s box, and Black Pride reared and screamed. Mr. Desmond laughed and turned back to Mr. Callaghan. ‘One of the servants, Rose or Janet maybe, could’ve left a doll’s shoe in the library. Things get left about.’
“Then Mr. Desmond laughed again. He looked big and handsome and as though he owned the world as well as Castle Moore. He stared at Mr. Callaghan as though Mr. Callaghan was a serf in Russia on his estate and he could have him whipped if he wanted to. Like he had cossacks and such.
“But then Mr. Callaghan only gave a big sigh and said something about how he’d managed to get a copy of Mr. Desmond’s Visa bill for the last six months, and he said, ‘The June bill includes a purchase in Waterford. I know where you bought the doll.’”
To Inspector O’Hare, listening, it was as though with Fergus Callaghan’s words, I know where you bought the doll, a looming wave had finally crashed. Ugly. Sad and ugly. The room was quiet. Maureen Devlin had put a hand to her throat; there was terrible pain on her face. No one made a sound; there was not even a shuffle of feet, only the rain spattering against the windows.
Inspector O’Hare looked back at Brian Coffey. “Go on.”
Brian said, “That’s when Mr. Desmond threw the riding crop aside and took out the knife. And I knew then that all the time, all the time he had asked Mr. Callaghan to the stable to kill him. He’d find a good-enough reason. He’d tell the police something. He was clever, oh, clever! And strong!
“He went for Mr. Callaghan’s chest. Mr. Callaghan pulled a gun from his jacket pocket—he was no fool, after all—but he was too late. Mr. Desmond knocked the gun aside. It fell on the ground and went off, flying behind a bale of hay. The gunshot set Black Pride to rearing and screaming, and Black Pride, gone crazy, burst out of the box and took off like thunder. Startled, Desmond let the knife fall to the ground.
“For a second, Mr. Desmond and Mr. Callaghan stood frozen. Then Mr. Callaghan dove for the knife. At that, Mr. Desmond laughed like he was in charge, even lazy about it. Strange, it was, shivery, like he was playing some mean game with a cornered animal—a cat or a weasel or some such—and he went to put his foot in its riding boot down on Mr. Callaghan’s hand that was picking up the knife, except that a stone or something turned under his foot and he lost his balance and Mr. Callaghan stood up with the knife.
“‘I don’t want to, but I will,’ Mr. Callaghan said to Mr. Desmond, waving the knife around. He was all choked up. He sounded scared, like he didn’t know what to do. He was backing away and holding the knife awkwardlike, like he hated even t
o touch it. ‘I thought you might—So I brought the gun. In case you tried—As you did! As you did! It’s you or me, isn’t it, Desmond Moore?’ His voice was way high, almost a squeak. ‘You or me.’
“Mr. Desmond just smiled, the superior smile he sometimes does, and he said, ‘Now, now, Mr. Callaghan, maybe we can figure this out. There are other ways. Monetary, perhaps?’ He was moving closer to Mr. Callaghan, but I don’t think he fooled Mr. Callaghan. Mr. Desmond had his eye on the knife in Mr. Callaghan’s hand, and I could see by the way his shoulder moved he was going to attack Mr. Callaghan, grab the knife from him. The way Mr. Callaghan watched him, he knew it too, that it wasn’t over.
“Then Mr. Desmond, as though like a sneer that he couldn’t help, it had to come out, said, ‘What’s the difference? You sleep with the mother; I have my … proclivities’—and he made a sudden grab for Mr. Callaghan’s wrist, with the hand that held the knife.
“At that, Mr. Callaghan made a terrible sound in his throat and raised his hand with the knife and drove it into Mr. Desmond’s stomach. He must have struck something vital inside Mr. Desmond because Mr. Desmond just stood still for a minute then went down on his knees and fell sideways, blood spreading dark on his vest.
“That’s when Mr. Callaghan dropped the knife, like he was throwing it away from him.”
66
Stunned silence. Then, “Christ Almighty!” someone murmured. Willinger? Heads turned to stare at Fergus Callaghan. Inspector O’Hare, with shaking fingers, took out a cigarette, looked at the NO SMOKING sign on the wall, and put the cigarette back in the pack. He was hot and cold and unbearably excited. He flicked a significant look at Sgt. Jimmy Bryson, who moved to stand behind the bench where Fergus Callaghan sat beside Maureen Devlin.