The Wild Mountain Thyme

by Kathryn Scarborough

  “Can she see you?” He thought rather loudly.

  “Of course not, boy-o. Not unless I wish her to.”

  “You just better wish her to see you then. I’m tired of looking like an idiot because of you. She thinks I’m mad as a hatter.”

  Megan looked up in time to catch Jim, glaring at her shoulder. “Jim, are you all right?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  The waitress brought their breakfast, and he started to make a dent in the mountain of eggs on his plate before he looked up. Seamus was on the table, leaning over Jim’s coffee cup, slurping away, humming to himself between his very noisy sips. Jim used his thumb and forefinger and flipped the little guy head over butt onto the table. The leprechaun jumped up, sniffed, straightened his hat and jacket, pulled on his earlobes, and disappeared.

  “There is something I forgot to ask,” Jim said mentally to Seamus as he drank from the cup, wondering if he could get leprechaun germs. “Were you responsible for that dream last night?” Jim looked around the room as casually as he could, trying not to draw attention to himself. He thought he saw a flash of green over near the kitchen door.

  “Seamus, if you’re here, show yourself,” Jim commanded silently. There was no answer. Jim decided to give it up. For the time being.

  ****

  Megan glanced up, happy to see that Jim was looking somewhat coherent. Maybe she’d imagined what she now thought of as his “leprechaun look.”

  Maybe she was the one who was crazy.

  Maybe there really was a leprechaun trying to get her to fall in love with this man.

  An image of Jim, white-haired and sitting opposite her behind a computer monitor, flashed in her mind. On top of the monitor sat a leprechaun doll with red hair and a curled red beard.

  She shook her head. This was getting to be too much.

  Chapter 14

  “So tell me,” Jim said after the waitress had taken their plates and refilled their cups.

  “Tell you what?”

  “About the profile.”

  “The profile?” Megan had a blank look on her face.

  “You know, the ‘average’ serial killer,” prompted Jim.

  “Oh. Well,” she said as she leaned forward a bit conspiratorially. “The person is usually very self-assured but tweaked in some way. He; they are mostly men, you know, not many women, if it is a woman, she is anti-social, disorganized, and might be a heavy drinker. Anyway, sometimes the killer is sporadic, and then there is the spree killer who doesn’t care who he kills or why. There is the methodical one who kills a specific type of person for his own twisted reasons, like the boy-o we’re looking for.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  Megan thought of Richard when she’d said the word tweaked and remembered the terror that seemed to radiate from him when there was a mention of his father. Richard’s father had abused him, beating him physically, and what was worse, psychologically. The abuse went on until, finally, Richard had moved out and escaped sometime after he was nineteen. Megan had observed “triggers,” certain incidents that caused Richard to withdraw into himself, act very surly and verbally abusive. He’d twisted her arm once and that had been the beginning of the end. After that incident, she’d investigated him and had found that everything about Richard was a lie; his position, his friends, even the car he drove turned out to be one that his father leased for his clients. During the investigation she’d conducted, she’d found out about Richard’s mother and all the times Richard had been hospitalized because of his father.

  Megan had seen the under-the-surface horror in Richard once. The aftereffect of the physical as well as mental beatings would hide itself behind a wall of bravado and oily charisma. Richard’s controlling personality spoke volumes about his fear of his father and his inability to have control over his own life since he’d been a very small boy. Megan’s thoughts of Richard played through themselves, taking her in a completely different direction than the topic at hand.

  “Many times a trauma of some sort in the killer’s life will precipitate the stress, act as a trigger, and that’s when he begins killing.

  “Sometimes he will kill for a while and then when he’s finally caught, the authorities can put two and two together and decide that they have caught someone who’s been murdering for years by their modus operandi. Of course, all his, ‘I killed him because I was abused’ blarney doesn’t make it with me.

  “You remember the story of Cain and Abel,” she half-asked, half-stated. “Did you know that not one chap blamed the bloody club Abel used to beat Cain? Not like they do in your country blaming guns instead of the people who fire them off.” She quirked a smile at him. “I don’t suppose I need to spout any political correctness to an American.” She fluttered her eyelashes coyly for a moment.

  “But back to the killers. They kill because it is a way of controlling the outcome of their lives. They want to be caught, need to be caught, and in some grotesque sense are doing the killing to feel as though they can facilitate their own destinies. Some killers leave blatant clues. Some write letters to the newspapers spouting philosophy. Remember the Uni-bomber and the Son of Sam?”

  “Hey, not all serial killers are Americans, you know,” Jim defended. “Remember Jack the Ripper?”

  “He was a bloody Brit, thank you very much.”

  “You mean, amongst all those crazy IRA terrorists there isn’t one guy that did it ’cause he got a charge out of it?”

  Jim’s remark angered Megan so that she took a huge breath and let it out slowly. Silly girl, of course he’s right. Keep some perspective.

  “I don’t believe in all that blarney. If the stray, misguided thug up in Ulster bloody kills their own neighbor every time they turn around, then so be it. The IRA doesn’t do political in Dublin. Not since the twenties when we became a free Republic.” She knew she was stretching that statement until it broke. There were always the fanatics. Of course, Jim boy would know that, him being a journalist. “And another thing, you shouldn’t think that all Irishmen are terrorists any more than all people from Florida will kill any European tourist they happen on. Don’t you find it incomprehensible when someone has a preconceived notion because you are from somewhere instead of who you are as a person?”

  Jim shook his head slowly and leaned forward to pat her hand.

  “Megan you are such a firebrand. You should be a ‘carrot top’ as mad as you get.” He saw a storm start to build in her gaze, and the center of that storm was aimed right at him.

  He hoped she would lighten up just a little, and soon. He ached to hold her and find out the depth of that passionate behavior.

  He almost let a sigh escape. He could let himself slip so badly and fall hook, line, and sinker. He should be much too pragmatic for all of that. Much too sensible. He just didn’t fall for any pretty face. It had to be the right pretty face, at the right time, and in the right circumstances.

  He’d shelve this whole topic until a later time.

  “I think to be on the safe side, we need to drop all the political talk. And by the way, I know that not all Irishmen are terrorists, any more than all Arabs are out to get us. Generalizations can get mighty sticky, don’t you think?”

  Megan picked up a manila folder and made a playful swipe at his head and giggled. Jim looked up and grinned.

  “Point taken. No more political talk. I will become apolitical for the rest of the trip. Now, have you decided about anything for our next step?”

  “Yes, let’s go pick up Freddy and have him watch out for the bad guys while we do a little sleuthing.”

  “Sounds jolly good.”

  “You know, I’ll never get used to hearing that.”

  “What?”

  “Jolly good. It sounds like those guys in old historical films with their pinkies stuck in the air while they drink tea,” said Jim, demonstrating.

  Megan laughed and her silvery laughter rippled through him. Jim braced his chin against his hand and looked on at
her with delight. He thought he could listen to her laugh the whole day, and never once get tired of it.

  He shook his head to clear the thought and gathered up his things quickly.

  Chapter 15

  Megan and Jim circled the cordoned-off crime area, but now, to Megan’s relief, in the daylight. The two were making an attempt to absorb all the information available. The killer had done a neat job. The murder had been planned down to the last detail and left nothing to chance. The murderer had positioned himself next to an outcropping in the wall, putting him in the shadows. From the look of the footprints, it would have taken him exactly one step to get to the victim.

  The Dublin police had ascertained from information from the first few murders that the killer would strike up a conversation with the victim in a crowded bar, walk with him outside, and then ask him to go back in to retrieve something. That much they’d surmised from the various witnesses who had recalled seeing an American come in and look for something and then slip back out again. The killer may have worn some sort of disguise. Perhaps he was so ordinary that no one remembered any distinctive features about him.

  Megan and Jim, following the lead from the Dublin police, decided that the killer must be a man because of the upper-body strength necessary to strangle these large victims. It was a man, and a good sized one at that.

  Jim had gotten a copy of the victim’s statistics from a buddy in the States via e-mail. His friend worked in forensics in Boston where a copy of the man’s ID had been sent prior to his body being flown to the States. The Irish police had released the victim to the family, who in turn were even now sending the victim on to Boston.

  Freddy Nolan, their informant, had overheard his father telling his mother that a forensics team from Dublin would be there any minute.

  Megan looked over her shoulder for the umpteenth time. She was sure the police would catch them nosing about.

  Even though it was broad daylight and the sun was shining, she felt a quiver course through her.

  “Jim boy, can’t ya see that the lass is frightened out of her wits. Best you go over and kiss her hand or some such.”

  Jim caught sight of the pesky little leprechaun. This time the little man was sitting in a highly stylized cart, decorated with garlands of flowers and vines, and hitched to a donkey that wore a nosegay of red and pink flowers on his bridle. The animal looked about, idly chewing on a bunch of straw.

  “Who’s your friend?” Jim asked of the donkey. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll let one go right there in midair? Maybe ‘it’ will come back and land on those pointy shoes of yours.”

  Seamus blustered in disgust, snapped his fingers, and he and the donkey cart were gone in a puff of green smoke.

  Jim shook his head and then got his mind back on the task at hand. Megan looked at him, and pulled her brows in thought. She opened her mouth to speak, but Jim cut her off.

  “Don’t worry, everything’s under control. I just want to measure this space between the footprints and we can go back to the room and start making some charts.”

  Megan looked over her shoulder again. Nerves. She was a complete Nervous Nelly, and uncharacteristically so.

  Since last night, much had changed; first the dream, and then Jim saving her from her nightmare. A lot could happen in a short eight hours. Megan shook her head, wondering what would happen next.

  “Well, I think I’m finished. We can go back to the hotel. What time is it anyway?”

  “Half past three. Jolly good, let’s get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps. Well, it’s not here exactly—it’s everything that’s giving me the jumps.”

  At the hotel, Megan and Jim made themselves comfortable in the bar. As they waited for their drinks, Jim took out a legal pad and began to draw a diagram.

  “Now, according to my informant in Boston, the victim was five feet eleven inches and weighed around two hundred and five pounds. The killer came up behind him and I was told that there was more pressure on the left side of his throat than the right, so our killer is left-handed. Since there was more pressure placed on the upper part of the throat than down under the jaw, the killer is probably about an inch or two taller than the victim. So we have a killer who’s about six feet two inches and left-handed. It’s a rudimentary algorithm, but more truth in it than not. It’s a sure bet he’s a national, so we need to look for all six foot two, left handed Irishman.”

  “My, is that all?” Megan rolled her eyes and giggled.

  Jim cut his eyes at her before he continued. “The problem is there are so many people around because of the beauty contest and the artists’ festival that it will be hard to find out if the killer is a local or from another city.”

  “I’d say he’s from Dublin.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the killings started there, that’s why.”

  “Hmm, point taken.”

  Megan’s gaze drew to his mouth and she remembered the kiss the night before. The sound of the rain drumming against the windows. Jim’s arms around her lulled her into a very relaxed but very acute feeling of excitement. The thoughts made her shiver. Megan clenched her hands in her lap, opening and closing them again and again. That kiss, soft and pliant, had shaped itself to her as if they were made for one another. It was so right, so utterly right. It was so…

  Jim looked up at her. “Are you okay? We can do this after dinner if you’d rather.”

  “Yes, let’s order an early dinner. I say, let’s go to the theater tonight and watch a play and get our minds off murder for a short break.”

  “I can’t send any information about the killer to the Times, just those photos you shot yesterday with a description of the victim. The police don’t take well to information being spilled before they say so.”

  Jim continued to shuffle through his voluminous papers, stopping and reading any interesting tidbits along the way. Megan sighed a little. There was certainly a lot she’d rather be doing with Jim than working on a murder investigation.

  “Have you written this day’s piece for the Globe as yet?” she asked, hoping to get his attention and her mind off other things.

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you what, in the interest of time, you edit my piece and I’ll edit yours and we can wire them. We should finish inside an hour. Want to grab a burger while we’re working? Kill two birds with one stone that way?”

  “Sure, but there’s no McDonalds around here if that’s what you’re thinking. We’ll have room service send sandwiches up to the room, and then go to the theater around seven.”

  “Sounds good,” said Jim. And then he remembered. He remembered that he and Megan shared a room where there was not only one, but two beds, one on each side of that ugly, gray metal desk. He took a moment, closed his eyes, and attempted to wipe his mind clear of Megan thoughts. He had to. He had a job to do.

  Chapter 16

  She was a rare woman, a rare and beautiful woman. Knowledgeable, passionate about many things, but how could he write and edit while she looked over his shoulder? He looked up at her then, watching as she finished off her whisky and sorted out papers to put in her briefcase. Well, it was mind over other unmentionable parts of his anatomy. He had to put everything in perspective without going crazy over that cute little nose and those deep green eyes?

  He wanted her in the worst way. The worst way. Keeping his perspective around her had turned out to be a daunting task. But he’d do it. He was much too sensible to let all of this, whatever it was, drive him crazy. They had a job to do, and between the two of them, he knew they could pull it off.

  “Ah, boy-o. I knew it. I knew it would just be a matter of time before you fell in love. Now, I do believe that there’s a priest still up at St. Ignatius and he’s just around the corner. Let’s trot on over and speak to him and get the Banns read.”

  Seamus stood on the bar near Jim’s sleeve. Seamus snapped his fingers and a tiny Irish harp appeared. The little elf sat cross-legged, with the harp on his lap and strumme
d the very out of tune strings.

  “Ho ro, my nut brown maiden

  Hi ri my nut brown maiden

  Ho ro ro, maiden

  Who else would I marry but thee?”

  As quickly as the harp appeared, it disappeared and Seamus puffed himself onto the rim of Megan’s whisky glass. With great slurping sounds, he licked the bits of whisky he’d just dabbed off his fingers. Jim watched all of these antics, tried not to laugh, and then remembering himself, glared at him. But the little man looked back smugly. Seamus hopped off the whisky glass and sat himself comfortably between Megan and Jim. He pulled a miniature Irish harp out of the air, and after strumming a few chords burst into song:

  “Oh the summer time is comin’,

  and the trees are sweetly bloomin’,

  and the wild mountain thyme,

  grows around the bloomin’ heather,

  will ye go lassie go?”

  Seamus sighed, waggled his brows at Megan, turned and waggled them at Jim, threw the harp into the air, and disappeared.

  Jim closed his mouth with a snap, watching Seamus’s antics and realizing that his jaw had sprung open and his chin was somewhere in the vicinity of his belly button. Jim had to admit that the little guy really had a terrific voice, and obviously a few drops of single malt helped lubricate those pipes. Jim felt like clapping for the performance, but he didn’t. He had to keep focused on—wait. What had happened last night while the two of them were asleep in that garret? Did they both have the same dream? He put on a stern face and glanced at the spot where Seamus had been.

  “You were responsible for that dream last night weren’t you?” he thought loudly. Can you think loudly?

  “Not me boy-o. It was those ad fellas upstairs. Upstarts, all of them. Why, they made the credits at the end bigger than the title. And by the way, Mr. Smarter-Than-Your-own-Britches, it’s all true.”

  “What’s all true?” Jim felt his brows rise up his forehead.