The Last Bride in Ballymuir

by Dorien Kelly

  “Michael Kilbride?” asked one of the Gardai.

  His mouth sour with the bile of fear, Michael nodded.

  The crowd stirred as the door opened one last time. Voices raised. Though he couldn’t make out the words over the roaring in his head, one voice he knew.

  Please, God, not this.

  “Let me through,” Kylie cried.

  Not this. He must have wavered, for he felt his sister’s and brothers’ hands support him.

  “Michael Kilbride, I’m arresting you in connection with the murder of Brian Rourke,” said the Garda. “I’m asking that you come with me peacefully.”

  Kylie’s inarticulate cry tore through his heart. He couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t survive this moment without crumbling. And that he’d not do. Keeping his gaze squarely on the pair of Gardai in front of him, he stepped forward.

  “I’ll be all right,” he said to his family, while deep inside he felt himself begin to die.

  “Gerry, what’s this about?” Kylie’s voice was thick with horror.

  “Your lover’s been off in Galway plying his trade. A little murder, and—”

  “No!”

  “Are you saying he wasn’t there?” Flynn’s smile was dark and ugly. “Or maybe you’re saying you were with him?”

  Sly bastard, Michael thought. Sly, evil bastard.

  “Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m saying—”

  “What?” goaded Flynn. “No begging? No offers for the gentlemen here? I’m surprised, after the way I saw you that night—spreading your legs to clear your father’s debts. And later your da drinking to his daughter, too. So now I was thinking you wouldn’t be beyond suggesting a spot of whoring to free your lover.”

  He might not have killed Brian Rourke, but Michael was goddamn well going to murder Gerry Flynn. Breaking free of the Gardai who held him was no great challenge. They seemed almost inclined to let him get in a shot or two. Gerry wouldn’t have been much in the way of a fight at all, except that someone else chose to dive into the fray.

  “Stay back,” he shouted at Kylie, grabbing Flynn by the shirt and ducking his flailing arms. “I don’t want you hurt.”

  Before he could stop her, she had Flynn from behind, her fingers dug into his face. Then Flynn drove his elbow back with brutal force. Kylie’s head hit the floor with a sickening thud, and Michael’s world went black with rage.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Necessity knows no law.

  —Irish Proverb

  Kylie drifted up from blackness. She felt as though she’d been ground to bits, with a mysterious ache in the back of her head throbbing especially hard. She opened her eyes, and her head rebelled at the introduction of light. When she tried to bring her hand to her forehead to ease the pain, something tugged at her. Squinting, she focused on plastic tubing biting the tender underside of her forearm. That brought her wide awake.

  The hospital. Even dizzy and hurting, how could she have missed the hated noises and scents of this place? She was in the hospital. And Michael was—

  She clenched the sheet with her free hand and felt the band of a ring press into her skin. Dear God, it was coming back to her now in terrifying detail. Michael’s arrest, the way she’d launched herself at Gerry Flynn, and the sharp pain in her head before blackness swallowed her.

  “So you’re back with us now?”

  Her gaze shot to a figure at the side of her bed. Her da was there.

  “How long have I been here?” She winced at the parched sound of her voice.

  “A couple of hours. They say you fought like a real O’Shea. If you hadn’t hit the floor quite so hard—”

  She braced herself on her elbows and slowly sat up. For the effort, pinpoints of bright-yellow light shot past her eyes. “I don’t have time for this. I’m leaving, I have to get to Michael.” She fussed with the intravenous lines attached to her arm. “Find someone to get this out of me.”

  Her da patted her shoulder, then took a hasty step back when she glared at him. “Now Kylie, you’re not well. Not enough potassium in you, or something like that. The doctors say you have to stay the night.”

  “I’m leaving,” she repeated, then began to pick at the tape holding down the lines.

  “Darlin’, there’s nothing you can do for the man. They took him back to Galway as soon as they patched him up. And he did it, Kylie. He killed a man. Evie Nolan was telling everyone there’s no doubt.”

  She’d never felt so close to madness, yet had everything so clear at the same time. “I don’t care if Evie says she watched Michael do it. Just get someone in here, and get me unhooked. Now, damn it!”

  Johnny retreated from the room.

  After signing a bunch of bloody forms that said she was taking her life in her hands by leaving without the doctor’s consent, Kylie was released.

  Before leaving the hospital, she made a frantic phone call to Vi, who confirmed that Michael was in Galway, and that given his and Rourke’s paramilitary connections, they could hold him for three days before charging him with a crime. The family was hiring a solicitor and an investigator. Beyond that, she offered nothing.

  “Michael doesn’t want you involved, and at present it’s best to keep it at that,” Vi had said in a firm voice, then hung up.

  No, it wasn’t best. It was Michael skewering himself on his own sword. And Kylie would have none of it.

  Her da helped her into Breege’s car, which he’d found outside the Village Hall with the keys still in it. As they drove back to Ballymuir, she shifted in her seat and looked at him. Gerry’s taunts still whispered insidiously in her mind. If she could do nothing for Michael right now, at least she could free herself.

  The day’s troubles had given her no patience for subtlety, so she said it straight out. “Da, Gerry Flynn says I prostituted myself to settle your debts, and that you arranged for it.”

  Her father nearly swerved off the road.

  “Watch out,” she cried. After she’d calmed enough to pry her fingers from the dash, she asked, “So is it true?”

  “Never,” he said with such vehemence that she wanted to believe him.

  “But you know what I’m talking about.”

  He was silent for a moment, then said, “Keefe.”

  The word hung in the air between them. Kylie knew if they didn’t finish this now, they never would. And that any hope of finding her way with her father would vanish.

  “Suppose you tell me what happened.”

  Her da gave in without a fight. He blew out a slow breath and seemed to grip the steering wheel tighter before beginning. “The night Keefe came to our house, I woke feeling fuzzy, so I went downstairs to drink a hair of the dog. I was walking across the salon with the decanter in my hand when my foot hit something. It was a pearl. Just like the ones you’d been wearing. They were everywhere. God in heaven, I was so scared for you, Kylie. I couldn’t find you. I ran to the garage thinking I’d go looking for you, but my car was gone.”

  “I had taken it.” Though she had never been willing to admit it to herself, she’d seen him—a ghost in an upstairs window—when she’d returned. And she had always wondered.

  “I walked to the road, then sat there and cried and drank from that goddamn decanter. Gerry Flynn appeared, I don’t know how much later, and helped me into the house.”

  Flynn. Always bloody Flynn at the bottom of her woes. “And what did you say to Gerry?”

  “I don’t remember. I plain don’t remember, but I can promise you I didn’t do what Flynn said.”

  The choice between Flynn and her own father was an easy one. “I believe you, Da.”

  “Keefe called a week later,” he said in a ragged voice. “He told me I could consider my debt settled. Then, I knew. I knew and I hated myself for putting you in harm’s way. And God forgive me, Kylie, it got so I couldn’t bear to look at you, the guilt was so bad.” He dragged a hand over his face. “The truth is that I’d give the world to take it all back. All of it.”
r />   That, at least, was a sentiment she knew well.

  It was an old refrain, the same whether in the Maze or Galway City: Concrete walls, concrete floor, pride and privacy stripped, dignity gone. Michael sat on the edge of his cot, head dropped and hands hanging limply between his knees. When questioned, he had told them the truth about seeking out Rourke, about the fight, of his every step in the city. At least until the truth crossed path with Kylie.

  It was no great risk, protecting her reputation. Even if it were, he would have done it without a moment’s hesitation. Because truth, as Michael knew, meant nothing. And for the ultimate truth—that he had broken Rourke’s face, but not caved in his skull—he had only his word to give. That, and the argument he’d hardly have given them Rourke’s location if he’d killed the man. But in the eyes of the authorities, his word meant nothing, too.

  He supposed there was some chance that Rourke’s true killer would be found—if anybody cared to look. Sitting where he was, on the wrong side of the bars, it took an impossible leap of faith to believe they weren’t already content. They had his fingerprints all over a gun, even if they couldn’t quite come up with a bullet hole to match. He’d seen them overlook details before.

  He might well die in a place like this. The first time he’d been jailed, that had been simply a matter of comparing shades of gray. But now, having loved Kylie, he was plunging into lethal blackness from a rainbow’s embrace.

  Michael stretched out on the mattress and stared at the drab plaster ceiling. If possible, would he give back the joy and the loving? Erase Kylie from his memory for the chance to live out his days in numbness, instead of the agony awaiting him?

  No, he wouldn’t trade a moment of it, neither the happiness nor the sorrows. But he would mourn.

  God, how he would mourn losing Kylie.

  Kylie had practiced her speech over and over until she was sure she had it down to an art. But confessing to a man who’d last seen her trying to rip out Gerry Flynn’s eyeballs was a bit dicier than chatting up the bathroom mirror.

  She’d been hoping for a more familiar face from the local ranks of Gardai. Not Gerry, of course. But since he was in the hospital with his jaw wired shut, he was no concern of hers.

  So now she faced one of the Galway Gardai, still wrapping up loose ends in Ballymuir. As she stumbled over her tongue, the officer wasn’t doing much to hide his disbelief.

  Kylie cleared her throat and pressed on. “So, you see, I never left Michael’s side, not once the whole time he was in Galway.”

  There now, she had it out. And please God, let it be enough.

  The officer took a sip of his tea, then fiddled with the papers in front of him. “Interesting, Miss O’Shea. We’ll be in touch if we require anything more.”

  “Interesting? That’s all you have to say?”

  He leaned back in his chair and shot her an amused look. “What would you have me do, ring the jail in Galway and ask that they free Mr. Kilbride?”

  That had been the general—if hazily-thought-out—plan. She had known it wouldn’t be enough to say that she’d been with Michael for the hours they’d really shared. Only full measure would work. So full measure she had given, and would have handed over her life, if she thought it would help his cause.

  “Well, no, I wasn’t expecting him to be released this instant,” she said aloud.

  “Fine, then. Good day, Miss O’Shea.”

  And then she was back on the street, but not without other work to do. If Ballymuir’s tongues were going to dance, she would orchestrate the motion.

  Kylie marched to O’Connor’s Pub. Inside, it was elbow-to-elbow talk. She borrowed a chair from the corner. Pushing through the whispered “she’s here’s” and “did you see’s,” she dragged it into the middle of the crowd and climbed atop it.

  Now head and shoulders above everybody else, she called out, “Excuse me.”

  Since the place had quieted at the sight of her, it took nothing more for silence to fall.

  “I know many of you were at the Village Hall this afternoon, and those who weren’t have heard the story by now. But I wanted to add a few things Gerry Flynn might have missed, since he won’t be talking for some time to come.”

  Heartened by the few approving chuckles, she dragged in a shaky breath and thought, here you go, girl, time to toss out your life and start again. Time to truly fly free.

  “One of the things Gerry failed to mention was that I was in Galway with Michael Kilbride. I won’t give you the details of what we were doing, but I can promise I didn’t leave him time to be off killing a man.”

  There was more laughter, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t care that it was at the expense of her precious reputation. All that mattered was easing the way for Michael’s return. And he would be back with her, if she had to tear down every bloody jail in Ireland to make it happen.

  “Now, I’m sorry if it offends some of you to hear that I’d have a bit of fun, and I’m sorry if I’m offending even more of you by saying that Michael and I have been ... ah ... together for some time. But you need to know he’s no murderer. He’s the man I love, and if you can’t accept that, well then, the devil with all of you.”

  Kylie took one last look into the sea of faces that held people she’d considered friends. Then she climbed off the chair and clutched the back of it, willing her knees to stop wobbling.

  In the silence, a single pair of hands started clapping. “That’s my girl,” she heard Black Johnny O’Shea shout.

  “Thank you, Da,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

  When more hands joined in, Kylie cried tears of joy.

  But by midnight, she had received the word she expected from Mairead Corrigan. Mairead was terribly sorry, but it was out of her hands. Until the matters involving Michael Kilbride had been resolved, Kylie was officially suspended from her job.

  And Michael was still in jail.

  It was early morning. Even without a glance at the outside world, Michael’s internal clock told him that. He still lay on the mattress, dry-eyed and sleepless, when he heard approaching footsteps.

  The cell door swung open. Three men stood in the doorway.

  “This way,” said the center man. Since he had no choice, and no reason not to, Michael followed.

  He was taken to the same interrogation room he’d seen the night before. The chair was still too small for his tall frame, and the lights still too bright. He blinked as his eyes adjusted.

  “Is my solicitor here?”

  “No,” said the man apparently in charge. “But let me ask this one question, and you decide whether you want to answer.”

  Michael shrugged.

  “Have you ever heard of Timothy Coyne?”

  He began to say “no,” but stopped as a recollection came to him. “The bartender mentioned a Coyne. Asked if he should call him.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “Escort him back.”

  Once back in his cell, Michael resumed his vigil watching the ceiling. One question. Not much to build hope on, but more than he’d had last night.

  The insistent ringing of a telephone woke Kylie from a drugged, leaden sleep. She made no move to answer it; she wasn’t ready to face the world.

  When the ringing stopped, and she heard Breege’s “Hullo” from the bedroom, she focused inward and began to plan. Today, she’d drive to Galway and push matters along. And she’d talk to the authorities there, too. She had little faith that the officer she’d seen last night was doing anything at all. And—

  “Kylie, dear, come pick up the phone,” Breege called.

  “I don’t want to,” she answered, not much caring that she sounded less mature than her students. Former students, she amended, and knew heartache at the thought.

  “It’s Violet Kilbride, and I’m thinking you should talk to the girl.”

  “Well, I’m thinking I shouldn’t,” Kylie muttered, but still dutifully r
ose, pulled on her robe, and padded to the bedroom. She knew Vi well enough to be sure that a visit would follow a refused call.

  She took the phone from Breege, who buried her nose in a book and did her best to look as though she wouldn’t be hanging on every word.

  “Yes, Vi?” Kylie steeled herself for another blast of ice from the formidable Miss Kilbride.

  “Quite a scene you must have made in the pub last night.”

  “Yes, well—”

  “I’ve had no less than a dozen calls today,” Vi said, her voice light with humor. “Father Cready said he’ll be looking for you at confession, though I have the feeling he’ll be going light on the penance.”

  If she weren’t so bloody tired, Kylie would have smiled. “Vi, I know you haven’t always thought the best of me, that I’ve not stood strong enough for Michael—”

  “I’d say you made your stand last night. And since you’re now officially mad enough to be a Kilbride, I wanted to let you know we just had a brilliant call from Michael’s solicitor. The Gardai think they’ve found the real murderer, and—”

  The same energy that had pushed Kylie past dropping yesterday filled her again. She had never doubted Michael’s innocence, but she had doubted the system holding him.

  She cut into whatever Vi was saying. “Then they’ll be letting him go, and I’ll never make it there on time.”

  “It could be days, yet,” Vi counseled. “And anyway, I was planning on heading up to Galway this afternoon, myself.”

  “No.”

  “No? You’re telling me I can’t go to my own brother?”

  “He’s mine to bring home.”

  Vi was silent a moment before saying with dawning surprise, “Right you are. Bring him home. And give him our love.”

  First, Kylie intended to give him her own.

  Michael looked about a bile-green reception room lacking a single familiar face. Not that he cared so very much, just so long as he was free. The man named Coyne occupied a cell in the building Michael was now permitted to leave.