Secrets and Shamrocks

by Phyllis Gobbell

  Instinct made me take a step backward. Riordan lunged and grabbed my arm.

  Alex made a move toward him, shouting, “Take your hands off her!” but in that instant, Riordan was brandishing a blade—a scalpel. I didn’t know how I knew it was a surgical scalpel, but I did. And I knew just as well that it was from the doctor’s office, the weapon he had used to stab James Malone. Lucas had taken it from the woodpile. Why was it in the woodpile?

  He jerked me toward him and twisted my arm behind my back.

  “How much do you know?” he repeated, his mouth next to my ear, his hot breath on my cheek, the cold tip of the scalpel on my neck.

  “About what?”

  I knew the time for pretending was over. Maybe I was just buying time. But no one was coming to rescue us. Colin and Grace knew where we were, but it would be a long time before they’d worry about us.

  “Don’t be such a bitch.” Riordan jerked my bent arm upward, and I yelped.

  Alex flinched, as if he could feel my pain, but he remained remarkably calm. “Whatever we know, you can be sure Colin and Grace know it as well. They have information for the Guard. Your best bet is to flee if you can—before the authorities catch up with you. No reason to harm us. We’re not the ones you should be afraid of.”

  “Nice speech, old man. You think I don’t know about the information—that daft man’s notepad.”

  “New information,” Alex said with a trace of smugness. “About the call you made to Dr. Malone the night before you killed him.”

  I couldn’t see Lucas’s face, but from Alex’s expression, I guessed that he’d struck a nerve. But was that the right move or a very dangerous one? My mind was spinning as I tried to work out what we ought to do. In the end, with a scalpel at my neck, I didn’t have many choices. Nor did Alex. He wouldn’t do anything to risk my life. Not on purpose. But standing up to Lucas Riordan wasn’t working.

  “Let’s go see that priest hole,” Lucas said.

  The door was unlocked, as it had been all along. When Ian and I had been to the cottage, I was glad the Guards hadn’t padlocked it; now I was wishing they had.

  Lucas had the upper hand here, with me in tow, my arm twisted behind me and a scalpel that he seemed ready and willing to use. Given my situation, Alex followed instructions without resistance. And so we found ourselves inside the cottage, in the room where the priest hole could be accessed. I looked up into the corner where I knew the panel could be removed. Alex’s gaze followed mine. The panel was inconspicuous, but I had told him where it was, above the sleeping loft. Lucas knew where it was, too, for he’d directed us to the room without any hesitation, and now he said, “Bloody good hiding place.” Someone had given him details about the priest hole. Someone had told him about the notepad.

  “You wanted to see the priest hole, old man, so go on up that ladder. It’s in the corner,” Lucas said.

  “I don’t see anything,” Alex said.

  Lucas thought about it. He jerked at my arm. “Tell him. You’re the one who found it.” He gave a twist that made me howl. “Tell him!”

  “For God’s sake, man!” Alex said. “That’s not necessary. We’re following your orders.”

  “Because you have no other choice,” Lucas said. As a further reminder, he touched the scalpel to my cheek. “Tell him how to get in.”

  He was right. I had no choice. Alex climbed the ladder, taking time and care as could be expected of a man his age. He began to sound the boards. “Enough stalling!” Lucas said. “Every minute you stall, she gets a mark on her face,” and he made a tiny scrape on my cheek. It was just a sting, but I knew there was blood. I swiped at it with my free hand and wiped my fingers on my pants.

  Alex was focused on his task. He didn’t seem to know what Lucas had done. “I’m doing the best I can!” he said. “It’s been concealed for centuries. It’s not easy to find.”

  “Tell him what to do,” Lucas said, putting pressure on the arm behind my back.

  I tried to remember what I’d done, how I was able to detect the particular board that was movable. Maybe two inches from the side wall, I instructed. Looked like trim.

  Alex finally said, “All right, all right. Here it is.” Another minute and he had the panel off. He sat back and wiped his brow.

  “Good work, old man. Now you just stay put. We’re coming up.”

  Lucas forced me up the ladder in front of him.

  All of us in the loft—I thought it might collapse, and that might be good luck for Alex and me, but it didn’t happen. The loft was solid.

  Lucas examined the panel. The priests who had hidden in the secret chamber had no way of getting out on their own. Someone on the outside had to remove the panel. Lucas smiled—a maniacal smile, I thought. And he ordered Alex to climb into the hole.

  Alex didn’t obey immediately. “You will not get away with this,” he said.

  Lucas demanded our car keys, and I took the keys from the pocket of my jacket.

  “I don’t think you’re a cold-blooded murderer,” I said. “You never killed anyone before Dr. Malone, did you? I’ll bet you didn’t intend to kill him.”

  “Shut up!” To Alex, “Get into the damn hole!”

  Alex climbed in. My blood ran cold when he looked down—and back at me.

  I hesitated. “Don’t do this, please,” I said. One last appeal.

  A moment after Alex had disappeared into the hole, Lucas shoved me through the opening and gave me another push. I landed on Alex. The light that came from the opening went out. Everything was black.

  CHAPTER 28

  I cried out in pain. I was sure my wrist was broken.

  I had fallen on Alex with an ooof! He said he was all right and asked if I was hurt. I lied and said no. In this pitch dark hole, he couldn’t see the pain etched in my face.

  We scrambled, as much as it was possible to move, until I was able to steady myself. We had just enough space for both of us to stand upright. The stench was reminiscent of the worst restrooms in service stations on the back roads of Georgia, before interstate travel took over. But most terrifying of all was the absolute darkness. A cloying darkness, a suffocating blackness.

  I spent a minute just getting my breath.

  “We told Colin and Grace where we were going,” Alex said. “They’ll find us.”

  “Didn’t Lucas think of that?” I said.

  “He wasn’t thinking clearly,” Alex said.

  “He didn’t take my phone.” I added. I unzipped an inside pocket of my jacket and retrieved the phone, punching buttons. Colin hadn’t been able to get service on his phone until he was on the path, some distance from the cottage. Ian got service in the yard. We were in a black hole. I hadn’t had great expectations. But nothing lit up. Was the battery was gone, too?

  “Someone will find us,” Alex said, his voice too consoling. It made me think he didn’t believe it, that he was placating me, as if I were still a little girl.

  I rubbed my wrist, trying to focus on our situation, our chances. What had Lucas hoped to gain by putting us here? Didn’t it occur to him that we would have told someone where we were going? Was he just buying time? He had our car keys. I hadn’t seen his car, so he must have walked from town. He planned to take ours, wherever he was going. If Colin and Grace came looking for us, they’d expect to see our car parked at the head of the trail. If they didn’t see it, would they just go away? Lucas might leave the car somewhere else to throw off anyone trying to find us. I was sure someone would eventually come to the cottage, but it might be a long time. Too long. How long could we survive in here? Priests had survived in these secret hiding places for several days, but—I began to conjure up all the problems a long detention would create, and I refused to let my mind go there.

  Alex and I stood shoulder to shoulder. We might be able to sit, maybe one of us at a time. Lying down would be impossible, even for one person and certainly not for two. Eventually, standing would become excruciatingly tiring.

  �
��He could have killed us,” I said.

  “You said you didn’t think he was a cold-blooded murderer. You’re probably right.”

  “Maybe he just wanted to get away, and he had to be sure we were confined for a while.”

  “Not too long, we hope,” Alex said.

  My uncle’s patience was admirable, but I wasn’t wired to just wait and hope. I groped for the rungs of the ladder, to climb back up. Crying out when I moved my wrist, I finally had to tell Alex that I thought it was broken.

  “Which one? And why did you say you weren’t hurt?” he said.

  “Left—better than my right—and I—don’t know why. We can’t do anything about it.”

  “You can keep it immobile. What are you trying to do?” He was scolding now, more like Alex. That was reassuring.

  “Hoping against hope that I can loosen the panel,” I said. I had to proceed slowly up the ladder. I finally reached the top and pounded as hard as I could, but it was no use. The board was secure. And climbing was not a good thing for my wrist. The pain was more intense when I came back down.

  “You have a watch, don’t you?” I said after a moment. I hadn’t worn a watch in a while, since I’d come to depend on my phone for the time.

  “Not one with a luminous dial,” he said.

  “I wonder how long we’ve been in here.”

  “Maybe half an hour. We’ll be all right, Jordan. Come now, settle down.”

  Sometime later, I said. “I’m glad I’m not alone, Alex. That would be—unbearable.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  “But if you weren’t in here with me, you’d be looking for me,” I said.

  “Someone is looking for us—or will be, soon,” he said.

  It was the darkest dark I’d ever known. A sucking blackness that made it hard to breathe. Silence made it worse, so I talked.

  “Not that Lucas Riordan would shed a tear if we didn’t make it out of this place, but stabbing someone with a scalpel is something else,” I said. “He didn’t have it in him to do that.”

  “Shall we give him a medal?” Alex said.

  “No, Alex, he’s a horrible man who deserves to be locked up, but—I was just thinking about Dr. Malone’s murder,” I said. “Suppose Lucas just lost his temper, lost control, and grabbed what was handy, the scalpel—and before he knew it, his brother-in-law was dead. He did some fast thinking and realized Bridget would make a good suspect. Maybe he didn’t think it all through, but he left the body out here to put the Guards on the wrong track.”

  “Yes,” Alex said without much expression. I had advanced that theory earlier, but now that I’d seen Lucas with the scalpel, I could go farther with it.

  “He hid the scalpel in the woodpile, thinking it would further implicate Bridget,” I said.

  “Oh.” Alex sounded more interested now.

  “But when the officers came to question Bridget, they didn’t find the scalpel. I heard Colin’s account, and he didn’t mention that they did a search. Sounded like they never really considered Bridget a suspect. Maybe because she was so frail,” I said.

  “Maybe because the doctor’s car was not parked at the head of the trail, as it would’ve been if Bridget had stabbed him when he brought her out here the night before,” Alex added.

  “And then, later, the coroner said time of death was early morning. Magdala did provide an alibi for Bridget, whatever that was worth,” I said. “So here’s the new puzzler, Alex. Why did Lucas come out here today and take the scalpel from the woodpile?”

  “He took it from the woodpile?”

  “Didn’t you see him do it?”

  “No.” Alex sighed. “I didn’t put all of this together about the scalpel. My concern was simply that he didn’t use it on you.” I thought I detected a smile in his voice.

  “I suppose he was going to get rid of it now, since it hadn’t served his purpose.”

  “Implicating Bridget,” Alex clarified.

  “Yes. But why now? It has to be because of Mr. Sweeney’s notepad.”

  “He did mention the notepad when he was ranting to us,” Alex said. “But didn’t you say Mr. Sweeney just got a look at the SUV? Maybe the driver’s face, too, but it’s not likely he’ll be able to make an identification now.” Alex paused and I could sense the wave of sadness. “Mr. Sweeney didn’t write anything about seeing someone hide a scalpel in the woodpile, did he?”

  “No, but Lucas might have thought he did.”

  We were quiet for a moment.

  I was thinking that Lucas couldn’t have known about the notepad until late last night—very late—after Colin gave it to Inspector Perone. I had not liked the Inspector, but the notion that he’d given information to Lucas was hard to accept. An inspector, tipping off a murderer? As improbable as a doctor getting his patients addicted to drugs.

  “All he had to tell Lucas was, There’s an eyewitness. Before he’d read through the notepad, when all he knew was what Colin had told him.”

  “All who had to tell Lucas?” Alex asked.

  The sound and vibration from my zippered pocket jolted me. I dug for my phone. Incredibly, a row of numbers lit up, and I answered with a breathless “Hello!”

  “Hello, Jordan, I am so glad you called. Only now did I—”

  “Paul! Oh, Paul!”

  “Are you all right, Jordan?”

  Alex broke in. “Tell him to call the Guard. Hurry.”

  I stammered. “Call the Guard in Thurles. Alex and I are stuck in a priest hole. Lucas Riordan took our car. Paul? Are you there, Paul?”

  I took the phone away from my ear. The screen had gone black. Alex had thought ahead. The phone had gone dead after a few seconds. I might’ve just hung onto Paul’s voice. It had felt like a lifeline.

  “I don’t know if he got any of it,” I said.

  I slid down the wall and sat there on the nasty floor, balled up. Nothing to do but wait.

  Time was hard to measure in that dark hole. It seemed longer than it probably was when Alex said, “Paul Broussard, I presume.”

  “Yes,” I said. Alex was better at playing the waiting game than I was. After a minute, I said, “And yes, I had lunch with Paul in Dublin on Friday. You knew, didn’t you?”

  “I did not know anything,” he said.

  If Paul had lost the connection before he heard what I was saying, I wondered if he might call Shepherds. In Dublin I had told him the name of the B&B, and he could get the telephone number from their website. He had asked if I was all right. He would be curious. Wouldn’t he?

  More silence. “Are you thirsty, Alex? What I’d give for a glass of iced tea.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  Time dragged on.

  And then, the sounds from above brought me to my feet. The noise of the panel being removed. A voice. The Guard? But I couldn’t shake the fear that if Lucas was back, he had come to kill us. I grabbed Alex’s arm and stifled a groan. I had forgotten about my wrist.

  The board came off, letting in a square of light. “Mrs. Mayfair? Mr. Carlyle?” A concerned voice. A face peering in. Not Lucas.

  Water had never tasted so good. I drank a whole bottle in a few gulps, and a female Guard handed me another. I recognized her; she was the small woman who had helped to get Magdala out of the priest hole. She swung her thumb toward the back of the cottage and said, “There’s a toilet back there in the edge of the bushes if you’re needing one. It’s not much, but it’ll do.” She’d spoken to me, it seemed, but both Alex and I answered that we could wait.

  The Guards were kind. One of them examined my wrist and said, “Don’t think it’s a fracture, but looks like a bad sprain. You’ll be needing to go to the A&E.” He gave me a cloth to wipe my cheek. I’d forgotten that Lucas had nicked it. A little blood, a little soreness, but it could have been much worse. When I told the Guard that Lucas had used a scalpel, which was probably the murder weapon, he said, “You’ll be wanting to tell Inspector Perone everything.”

&nb
sp; Inspector Perone. I didn’t know what to think.

  We went outside and stood in a patch of green under the alder tree, sipping on our water while the Inspector gave orders to other Guards. When he came over to us, leaving his people to check out the cottage and grounds, his first words were not to ask how we were. Maybe he determined by looking at us that we were all right. He said, “Seems you have some impressive contacts, Mrs. Mayfair.”

  “So Paul did hear what I was saying.”

  “Apparently he heard enough.”

  “I’m amazed we connected at all,” I said. The service, the battery—it made no sense.

  The female Guard who was standing by spoke up. “Maybe it was magic. I’m told the old woman, Magdala, was a believer in fairies and leprechauns, fanciful things like that.”

  “I would call it a miracle,” Alex said.

  There was actually a trace of warmth in Inspector Perone’s smile. “You may be right, sir. Come now. We’ll get you to the A&E.”

  He directed us to one of the two ATVs that had transported the Guards, and when we had squeezed into the seat, Inspector Perone himself slipped into the driver’s position. We zipped along the rough path and came to the parked cars in no time. Besides the four Guards back at the cottage, two others waited here. Quite an afternoon for the Thurles Guards.

  Alex and I got into the back seat of Perone’s car, a nondescript sedan. As he transported us to the emergency room, he asked what had happened back there, and we told him. Alex and I both supplied factual information, and I ventured some of my opinions about Lucas Riordan and his motives. Alex gave me one of those looks that said I was overstepping.

  “Whether or not you arrest Lucas for murder, he has now stolen a car. That’s a significant crime,” I said.

  “Yes, ’tis that,” Perone said.

  A little farther on, he said, “It was Garda Mallory.”

  I caught my breath. Perone may have realized that I’d suspected him as the leak. He turned his head just enough to cut his eyes at me. “I was surprised myself.”