Bel, Book, and Scandal: A Belfast McGrath Mystery (Bel McGrath Mysteries)

by Maggie McConnon

  Hers was no longer a cold case. Rather, it was getting very, very warm.

  “Sounds like you’ve been busy, Belfast,” Lieutenant D’Amato said. “Also sounds like you should get back to the kitchen. Start preparing for our party. You only have a few days.”

  “It will be lovely and beautiful, Lieutenant,” I said. I looked over at Jed, silent the entire time, looking out at the river. “We finished decorating the other night so it will be gorgeous when you arrive.”

  “Well, talk to my daughter if you need anything else.” He stood up, his minions standing up as well. “And Belfast,” he said, a warning in his voice, “stick to the kitchen. It’s where you belong.”

  I let them out and stood in the foyer until I heard their car drive off. So in addition to unearthing all sorts of new information about Amy, I had embarrassed the Foster’s Landing Police Department. Again.

  I went back into the kitchen, where I belonged, apparently. Although I had thought about letting this go and moving on with my life, it was becoming apparent that that was no longer an option. If I was reading the situation correctly—and according to Mom’s intimation, I was unable to do that anymore—there were people who didn’t want Amy found.

  Including Amy herself.

  Did that mean I would stop? I thought about that as I started chopping carrots, the rhythmic sound on my cutting board giving me the answer.

  Chop, chop, chop. “No, no, no.”

  CHAPTER Forty-four

  Fifteen minutes later, I was still chopping carrots in the kitchen, still figuring out how I was going to get out of here and track down Amy’s whereabouts once and for all, when a quick knock, followed by the appearance of a person in the kitchen, interrupted my troubled daydreams.

  It was Mr. Malloy, my former swim coach, the last person I expected to see in the middle of a school day, his face its usual broad, friendly Irish mug. “Hi, Bel,” he said, entering tentatively. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by suddenly, but I had a free period and seeing you the other day reminded me that my wife wanted me to come in.”

  “You have an event?” I asked, putting down my knife and wiping my hands on a damp rag that sat beside the cutting board on the counter.

  “My daughter’s Sweet Sixteen,” he said. “Can you believe it? I can’t.”

  “Wow, that’s hard to believe,” I said. “Time really flies doesn’t it?” I was still preoccupied from the visit from the police and trying to sound casual, something I wasn’t pulling off all that successfully. He hadn’t mentioned this when he had been here for Kevin and Mary Ann’s wedding, and as if he had read my mind he addressed that.

  “The wedding was so great that we thought that this might be the perfect place.” He pointed at his ruddy mug. “And being as we’re as Irish as they come, where else should we go but Shamrock Manor?”

  “I’m not sure you’d beat the McGraths in an ‘Irish-off,’ but you’d come in a hard second, I’m sure.”

  He looked around the kitchen, which after many years of cooking and entertaining carried the phantom odor of many a corned beef simmering in a big pot of flavored water.

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?” he asked.

  I thought I had recovered from the surprise of seeing him, of being jolted out of my reverie, but apparently that wasn’t the case. “Not at all,” I said. “Perfect time.” I reached up into the cabinet next to the big stainless-steel double sink and pulled out a folder that held menus I had created along with a pricing sheet. I had known Dan Malloy a long time and didn’t feel the need to involve my parents in this booking. Besides, right now they were eyeing me to see if I was going to go off the deep end and not doing a very good job of making it seem like everything was normal in that regard. I opened the folder. “How many people are we talking about, Mr. Malloy?”

  “‘Dan,’ please, Belfast,” he said. “We’ve had this conversation, remember? You’re an adult now and I’m, well, an older adult,” he said, chuckling.

  “I guess that’s true,” I said.

  “I would say that Sinead is going to invite the entire sophomore class, so we’re talking one hundred students and our family?”

  “So, one-twenty-ish?” I said.

  “Give or take,” he said. “You know how Irish families are. You need a scorecard to keep track of who’s speaking to who on any given day. Right now, it’s my mother and my youngest sister. Something about someone taking over Christmas dinner or something like that. The claim, as it were, had already been staked.”

  I was well aware of the Irish grudge.

  “We’ll see how it goes. Maybe Mom will relent. But I doubt that either one of them would miss Sinead’s sixteenth birthday.”

  We got down to the business of planning for the party, three months in the future, on an evening in early March, when we were notoriously quiet, the rare bride picking a damp and mercurial month in the Northeast to plan her wedding. It could rain. Snow. We could have a hurricane. Or a tornado. Any meteorological event was possible in the third month of the year, but I didn’t remind Mr. Malloy of that. Keeping my mouth shut and vaguely suggesting we have a backup date—one that we would gladly give him if the weather proved dodgy—we created a menu that would suit both teens and older family members, as well as a signature “virgin” cocktail that would make the kids feel like they really were celebrating in style, like adults.

  “One last thing, Bel,” he said.

  I put up a hand; I knew exactly what the next question would be. “No,” I said, anticipating the question. “You do not have to have the McGrath Brothers band play at your daughter’s Sweet Sixteen.”

  He let out a relieved sigh. “Okay, thanks. Sinead really wants a DJ and I wasn’t sure if having your brothers play was part of the deal.”

  I led him into the foyer, the heavy lifting done, in terms of planning. “Making you and your guests happy is our only deal,” I said, sounding more like Dad with every passing day.

  Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. As if right on cue, smelling a client, Dad emerged from the office, talking before he focused on Dan Malloy, his eyes trained on a sheaf of papers in his hand. “So, Belfast. Did you tell the police everything you know?”

  I shot him a look that asked him, telepathically at least, to shut it, but he mistook that for confusion, the need for more information.

  “About Amy,” he said. “How you found Amy?” He finally looked up and, seeing I was with another person, put his lips together.

  “Dad, we’ll talk about it another time,” I said.

  Dan Malloy’s face went white. “Amy? Amy Mitchell?”

  I looked from Dad, stricken that he had blurted this out in front of a client, back to Dan Malloy, stricken, it would seem, for another mysterious reason.

  The jig was up. The cat was out of the bag. “Yes,” I said. “Amy Mitchell. She may be alive.”

  He recovered quickly. “That’s wonderful news. So, she’s okay?”

  “We don’t know. We hope so,” I said. I changed the subject. “Dad, Mr. Malloy here has booked the Manor for a Sweet Sixteen in March.”

  “That is wonderful news!” Dad said, clapping the guy on the back and leading him to the door, one hand on Malloy’s meaty biceps. “You’ll have a grand time here at the Manor.…”

  I wasn’t listening anymore to Dad’s exhortations about the Manor, my cooking, how Sinead Malloy’s Sweet Sixteen party would be the event of the century, at least where the teens were concerned, or how the place would be dolled up for St. Patrick’s Day, complete with a green disco ball.

  No, I was thinking about the utterance of Amy’s name, and at the sound of it, Dan Malloy’s ashen face.

  CHAPTER Forty-five

  It wouldn’t be long before the police were back, having figured out that the address I had given them was a phony. I had a friend who had moved to the town that I had referenced and I had remembered her street name but nothing else. I didn’t even know if the house number I gave them existed. May
be they had put the address in their GPS and come up empty, aborting their three-hour drive north, or maybe they had gone anyway, a wild-goose chase that would end with my being put in the slammer. My money was on the latter. The last few months had seen an uptick in crime in the Landing—two murders at the Manor alone contributed to that—and our police department really wasn’t up to the challenge, having spent years investigating vandalism, the overdue library book, and, in one example of a deep dive into something that really didn’t matter, the case of a missing mint-condition Mickey Mantle baseball card, something that had kept them occupied for months. (It was in a sugar bowl in the owner’s grandmother’s basement apartment. Case closed!) That left me six hours to finish prepping for the policeman’s gala that would take place the next night, “gala” the word I had assigned it to make it seem more festive in my mind, and then get back to the business of answering the myriad unanswered questions that still remained.

  On this last day of school before vacation, snow was on the way. I could see it in the rapidly forming clouds, gray and dark, on the horizon. I could feel it in my bones, a chill beneath the cold that signaled we were due for more than a dusting. I spent the day in the kitchen, formulating my responses to Lieutenant D’Amato’s questions about the address I had given them, how it was probably a strip mall now, or even nonexistent. I had to have a plan, my answers at the ready, and as I diced some onions and cut up some cucumber for a crudité I thought about what those might be.

  I decided, finally, that ignorance was both bliss and my best course of action. After a few hours, my prep done, I still had heard nothing from them and decided I would take a ride past the police station just to check out whether they were still there, knowing that if they were going to go out in an official capacity they would take the Lieutenant’s “company car,” as it were, an oatmeal-colored sedan that I wasn’t sure they even made anymore. It was solid, an American car, one befitting an older guy who probably had lower-back pain (just a guess; he was constantly grabbing his hips and wincing) and who had no idea what his carbon footprint was or how this car was making it larger.

  I drove down the hill away from the Manor, circling through the residential neighborhood at its foot and through the village toward the train station. School was letting out and with it a throng of noisy students, oblivious to cars on the narrow streets, crossing against the light, running for their lives, or so it seemed. I caught sight of Brendan, a full foot taller it seemed than the group in which he was walking, stuck in the midst of what seemed like an army of tiny girls, all wearing backpacks and all jockeying for Mr. Joyce’s attention. I pulled over at the curb.

  “Hey, Mr. Joyce!” I called. “I really didn’t appreciate that C on my latest painting.”

  The girls stopped, looking from me to Brendan and then back at me, not in on the joke, or any joke for that matter. I had forgotten what it was to be in my teens, the world a very serious and dramatic place, especially for me. Everything that my parents said to me was stupid and everything my brothers uttered in my presence a gauntlet thrown down for an oral argument or worse. Looking at Brendan and thinking back to the events of earlier that day, I thought back to the one teacher to whom I would complain during those early mornings at the pool, my Speedo wet and my skin pricked with goose bumps, a guy who was committed to our team and its success, who would listen to our problems and offer some kind of platitude or useless advice, sometimes on our side, but more often on the side of authority. Our parents. Our teachers. Our priests.

  Brendan ran over to the car and jumped in, grateful for the diversion. “Where’s your car?” I asked.

  He turned and looked at me. “Are you daft or are you just playing with me, Bel? Because that’s not a funny joke. Not at all.”

  “Oh, right,” I said, putting my hand to my forehead. “I got hit in the head, remember? Maybe it did some damage to my hippocampus.”

  “Your ‘hippocampus’?” he asked.

  “Yes, part of the limbic system. Where memory is stored.”

  “I was an art major, Bel. I have no idea how the brain works.” He leaned over and put his arms around me, his mouth soft and warm despite the chill coming off his cheeks. We hadn’t kissed like this in a long time and I had almost forgotten what it was like, how he tasted.

  “You had a ham sandwich for lunch today, didn’t you?” I asked, pulling away.

  “Pea soup,” he said.

  “Cafeteria pea soup?” I asked. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

  “No. My mother’s. I rarely eat in the cafeteria,” he said. “And you were close on the ham sandwich. Mom puts a ham hock in there for flavor.”

  I pulled away from the curb. “Of course she does. There’s no other way to do it.”

  “What brings you to this part of town?” he asked, throwing his backpack over the seat and into the back of the car.

  I got to the stop sign at the corner and looked both ways before proceeding. “I told a little white lie today and it may come back to bite me in the ass.” I pulled onto the street on which the station house resided, driving slowly. “Tweed gave me an address for Amy. I gave the cops a different one.”

  “Come again?” he asked. “You have an address for Amy?”

  “I do,” I said, slowing to a stop at the curb across from the police station. “I went there. She either doesn’t live there or wasn’t home.”

  “Where is it?” he asked, not focusing on the part of the story where I had lied to the police.

  “Up north a bit,” I said. “Aren’t you going to ask me where I sent the cops?”

  “She’s alive?” he said. “You know for sure now that she’s alive?”

  “I thought we had established that, Brendan.” I turned to him. “You know that.”

  He looked out his window, away from me. “It’s just very real now.” As he faced me, I could see that he had tears in his eyes. “You must be so happy. To know for sure.”

  The last man I had seen cry was my father, someone for whom tears flowed freely, an old softie if there ever was one. He was the exception, though. Most of the men I knew were hard and tough, my brothers leading the pack in that regard. Hardened by Mom and her protestations to “be a man” and toughened by her in the same way. She meted out harsh punishments for the slightest of transgressions, nary a tear shed lest the punishment, which never fit the crime, get worse. Dad was allowed to cry, but no one else was, so seeing this big guy, softer than I knew apparently, shedding a tear over my lost friend was disconcerting. A little upsetting.

  I didn’t think about that longer than a few seconds because the air in the car had changed and not for the better. I scanned the parking lot for Lieutenant D’Amato’s big sedan and, not seeing it, drove around the block again, wondering if I should go inside and check on the status of Kevin and Jed and D’Amato or if I would arouse suspicion. I decided I had nothing to lose, and circling the block, Brendan having regained his composure, I pulled up to the curb again.

  “Wait here,” I said to Brendan, jumping out of the car and walking across the street to the parking lot.

  I walked up the long flight of steps and entered the station, my first encounter with the lovely Francie McGee, town gossip and all-around harridan. She also held the position of FLPD receptionist. “What can I do for you, Bel?” she asked, her eyebrows in a permanently raised position, her disdain for me evident. I don’t know what I had done to Francie McGee to make her loathe me so, but ours was a troubled relationship, one that had recommenced when I had returned, my trips to the police station happening with alarming regularity.

  Over her head, the station was abuzz with people. I could see the parking patrol lady moving about the room. She was someone from whom everyone ran when she announced her presence. There were some uniformed cops, two of them huddled by the water cooler, deep in discussion, their body language suggesting their conversation had something to do with football, one cop mimicking a quarterback throwing a ball. There was Jed, sitting
at his desk, his head bent over a stack of papers.

  And here came Kevin, a look of confused surprise on his face, like I was the last person he was expecting to see.

  Kevin put his hands on the low wall that separated Francie from the squad. “Bel, what’s up? What are you doing here?”

  I moved around Francie so she couldn’t see my lips moving or, I hoped, hear our conversation. I leaned in close to Kevin. “I would have thought you’d be on your way to Lake Morgan.”

  He cocked his head, a golden retriever trying to understand a multi-syllabic question. “What?”

  “Lake Morgan.” I leaned in closer. “Amy’s address?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Loo told me and Jed to stay behind.”

  “Why?” I asked, Jed and Kevin being two major pieces in this puzzle, two cops who were in on every aspect of this investigation, not to mention story.

  “He said he wanted to go by himself.”

  CHAPTER Forty-six

  I couldn’t drop Brendan off at his house soon enough. With a promise that we would see each other again soon, I sped back to the Manor, my thoughts not on my erstwhile boyfriend but on the Lieutenant and his striking out alone. I parked the car and went through the big double doors; I found Cargan in the office, thankfully alone.

  “Where are Mom and Dad?” I asked, out of breath from the exertion of running a full five hundred feet.

  “You have got to get into an exercise program, Bel,” Cargan said, looking up from the computer screen. “You’re going to have a heart attack.” He clicked on the keyboard for a few seconds. “And good news. The Crawford wedding is booked. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”

  I waved that off, putting my hands on my knees. “That’s great.” I took in a few deep breaths. “Now I’m going to tell you something and you have to reserve judgment. I just want an answer to a question.”

  He closed the laptop and gave me his full attention. “Why do I feel like you’re going to tell me something that’s going to make me have a heart attack?”