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

by Maggie McConnon

  “I have an address for Amy, Car,” I said. He sat up straighter in his chair, half getting out of it, his hands on the desk. “Dad didn’t tell you?”

  “No. Dad knows?”

  “Dad knows,” I said. “He made me tell the police what I had found out.” I pulled at a stray thread on my sweater, unraveling an entire row of stitches, just like what was going on here, the disparate threads pulling apart a story that had a beginning and no end. I had to let Cargan know about my deception, even though I knew he would not be happy. His brothers in blue were important to him and their bond may have been more than ours. I blurted it out. “But that’s not the address I gave to the FLPD. I gave them a fake address.”

  He sat back down, defeated. “Oh, Jesus, Bel.”

  “I know,” I said. “I told the Lieutenant, Jed, and Kevin. But here’s the weird thing.”

  The fax machine sputtered to life, scaring both of us. Cargan turned and looked at it, pulling out a sheet of paper and tossing it on a pile on top of the desk.

  “Only the Lieutenant went.” I had that same feeling that I used to have before I entered the confessional at church: a tingly, every-nerve-on-fire sensation that spoke to my guilt and my inability to embrace any kind of contrition related to it. Back then, I was a sturdy little ten-year-old and my sins ran to coveting Amy’s pink bike and calling one of my brothers an idiot. Now they were more corrupt. Lying to the police? That was probably the worst one yet.

  Cargan’s response was defeated laughter, his body shaking, his eyes tearing at the thought of what I did, the deed so overwhelmingly bad, a terrible decision, that his only option was to find the humor in it. “Oh my God,” he finally said. “You know you’re going to have to keep lying about this? Tell them that that’s what Tweed told you and never admit that you lied, right? Blame it on his addled state?”

  “That’s one way to handle it,” I said, my fingers on their own, worrying that thread again. If I kept it up, I’d be topless in no time. I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I guess.”

  He wiped his eyes. “Where is she?”

  I gave him the real address.

  “That’s not terribly far,” he said, checking his watch. “But too far and too late to go up and back now.”

  “You’re willing to wait?” I asked, hoping that this revelation, my deception, wouldn’t completely upend our relationship, one that I had come to count on and cherish. I never thought I would say that about one of my brothers, but without a real friend in town, besides Brendan of course, Cargan was my rock. My go-to. My older brother who looked out for me and me for him.

  “I’ve been waiting for over fifteen years,” he said. “Another day won’t matter.”

  When I woke up the next morning, refreshed after a dreamless sleep, I wrote a letter, the longest letter I had ever written. I didn’t use my computer, preferring to put everything down in my own handwriting, a letter to Amy asking her all of the questions I needed answers to when I got there. If she wasn’t home or wouldn’t let me in, I would leave this missive, one that would let her know that whatever had happened all those years ago was forgotten, that it was safe to come home.

  I knew I was being naïve. There was still the issue of that dead girl, someone for whom there had been a memorial this week, her parents’ grief having been awakened like a sleeping giant, angry and raw, their faces belying the fact that their daughter had been dead for a long time. No, she had just died and it would always be like that, waking up and finding out—remembering—that she was gone. The thought of that kept me in my chair for a long time, holding the letter between my fingers, wondering if anything I said would make a difference, bring her home.

  Our friendship hadn’t died that night, something I reiterated over and over again in the letter. I gave her all of the pieces of the puzzle I had, from that first drive to Wooded Lake to the day before when I gave the Lieutenant that fake address, anything to keep the police off her trail until I found her. I wrote the last line before signing my name.

  “And if you were here, we’d laugh out loud at the thought that tonight, if I am not in jail, I will make dinner for the entire police department of Foster’s Landing. Remember when we ran from the police? When we used to kayak away as fast as possible that year they got the new police boat and used to troll the river, looking for us? Those days are gone, Amy, and now I’m a responsible citizen and master chef, but working for my parents. The more things change, right?”

  It was early, early enough to get up and back before I needed to be in the kitchen, early enough so that I wouldn’t see Cargan, whose last words to me the night before led me to believe that there was no way I was going up to Amy’s by myself; he, the responsible one, the one who knew how to do a proper investigation, find a missing person, was coming, too. Except that he wasn’t, and as I drove down the hill toward the highway out of town I didn’t feel one morsel of regret.

  When I arrived, she either still wasn’t there or wasn’t answering. On the porch of Amy’s house, my heart racing just a bit, I pushed the letter, in a sealed envelope, through the slot in the big ornate front door. As I walked to my car, I passed a woman walking a small white dog; she stopped and gave me a smile. “Can I help you?” she asked. “I saw you go up the walk there. I live on the second floor.”

  I had assumed the house was a one-family, not a place with an apartment. I felt as if I had struck pay dirt. “My name is Belfast McGrath. I’m looking for someone. Her name is Amy,” I said. “She lives there.” I pointed to the house behind me.

  The woman, her face kind and lined in the way that a happy person’s was, someone who had smiled a lot in her life, grew sad. “Oh, I’m sorry, honey. There’s no one named Amy downstairs.”

  “Bess?” I asked. “Bess Marvin?”

  “No,” she said, giving the dog a little tug before it went into the road. “Just a young man. An artist, I think. Beautiful watercolors. I have one in my sitting room.”

  “Did a woman named Amy or Bess ever live there?”

  She shook her head. “No. I own the house, honey. I do the rentals. There’s never been an Amy or a Bess. A Kathleen and a David and a Priscilla. But not your friend.”

  “I never said we were friends.” I looked closely at the woman. I didn’t know her and would never be able to tell if she was lying and it was in that moment that I rued not having waited to take Cargan with me. He would know.

  “I just assumed,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.” She scurried off, less interested in talking to me now that she knew my real purpose for being there.

  I stood there for a moment, staring at the house, listening as the woman went inside and the front door slammed.

  The woman was lying; I could feel it in my bones and wondered if I had picked up some of Cargan’s special powers along the way. I made my peace with all of it in that moment; if Amy never came back, never contacted me, I would have to move on, something that would take some time. But I had to let it go. I had to think that she knew that I was around, but then again, maybe she didn’t. I wondered if Larry Bernard had found her and had questioned her in relation to Tweed’s stabbing. Surely he would have told me, just to assuage my fears of what had happened to her. Or maybe he wouldn’t. I was ascribing more logic—more closeness—to our relationship than what actually existed.

  Although I tried not to go there, I wondered if she was on the run again, if something strange and inexplicable and violent had happened that night, something that I didn’t know about that had made her run and never return to Foster’s Landing.

  Cargan was in the foyer when I returned a few hours later, his demeanor the same as always, his face inscrutable. “Nice drive?” he asked.

  I walked past him toward the kitchen. “Nice drive.”

  In the kitchen, I butchered six tenderloins and set about putting together the cheese course that Mary Ann had requested. Thankfully, she hadn’t contacted me much over the past several days, her last text admitting that she knew I
“had this” and that I wouldn’t let them down. I had cooked for their wedding, so they already knew what I was capable of; they had experienced it with their own eyes and taste buds. I was grateful for her lack of interference. She was letting me do it my way, to have free rein over the preparation of what I assured her would be one of the best meals anyone in Foster’s Landing had ever had. Because while I was insecure about a lot of things, I was sure of one thing and that was my skill in the kitchen.

  The dining room was abuzz with the other staff putting together the tables and assembling chairs. I kept my head down, my heart skipping a beat every time the door to the kitchen swung open, waiting for the moment when Lieutenant D’Amato would show up, point at me, and scream, You lied! in front of my parents, my brothers, and the entire Manor staff, my humiliation and guilt on display for all to see. In a spare minute, I googled “lying to police” and hastily put my phone back in my pocket when the results came up. Apparently, that wasn’t a good thing to do, to not tell the police the absolute truth and have them find out.

  The day progressed and nothing happened, but I still didn’t rest, knowing that at six o’clock he would show up, as would Kevin and Jed and a host of other local law enforcement, and it would be a matter of time before I was hauled away in handcuffs, my mother clucking disapprovingly as she worried her pearl necklace, Dad going into a full-blown meltdown, loud, heart-wrenching sobs filling the vastness of the foyer.

  As I made the final preparations on the meat, I noticed my hands shaking. Get a story and stick to it, I thought, making up a tale that no one would believe but that would maybe buy me some time until I figured out exactly what to tell the Lieutenant about this whole crazy story—this journey, really. In between chastising myself for not telling the truth, I justified it at the same time. I went into the walk-in and stood there, forgetting why I was there and finally saying to no one, “She doesn’t want to be found.”

  She told me herself just a few nights earlier. Or had she? Had I imagined it or had it been someone else? My obsession was slowly turning into insanity and I had to get back to normal, to an emotional equilibrium. I had carried this around long enough, the guilt, the shame, the idea that I—as many in this town thought—had something to do with her disappearance or maybe had facilitated it even.

  I needed to change the narrative, both in my head and in this town.

  Standing in the walk-in refrigerator, my letter probably still sitting between the screen door and the front door of Amy’s beautiful Victorian, I decided that once and for all, I would let it go. It was over. She was gone for good. I needed to make sense of my place in this world and what it meant that the last words I had ever said to my best friend, my sister from another mother, and that she carried in her heart, too, were, You’ll be sorry.

  We were young and we had certainly been foolish, but I would never forget her kissing Kevin, my boyfriend at the time, in front of me, the look of hard contentment and victory on her beautiful face, her betrayal and my words leading us to this place.

  She had betrayed me, but she wasn’t a killer. I had known her almost as well as I had known myself. That girl’s death, though, was beyond what I could look into or investigate; I would leave that to the police. I had to walk away. It had been Cargan’s approach all along, one I finally understood.

  The cold of the walk-in seeped into my bones and I shivered, finally remembering why I had come in. Eggs, I thought. I need eggs. I took a deep breath, letting all of the tension go, trying to erase the past, and walked from the refrigerator and back into the kitchen, the eggs in my hand, a small measure of peace in my heart.

  CHAPTER Forty-seven

  Cargan peeked through the small window that looked into the dining room, giving me a blow-by-blow of the attendees, their dates, and the mood of the room. “Francie McGee is wearing her best, formfitting, knit-jersey dress,” he said.

  “What do you know from a knit-jersey?” I asked.

  “I read Vashti,” he said, referring to that online magazine for women that Margaret Dunleavy had told me about. “I know knit-jersey, and how to pluck one’s eyebrows for maximum drama and effect, and what contouring looks like,” he said, without turning around.

  “And that should dispel any doubt as to why Feeney sometimes calls you ‘Nancy,’” I said.

  “I’m always trying to figure out how the other half thinks.” He continued his sartorial observations. “It’s a little snug for my liking, Francie’s dress, but I gotta say, she cleans up nice.”

  “Don’t go getting any ideas, Car,” I said. “She hates me for some reason and I can’t have you going with a woman with those kinds of feelings. Knit-jersey or not.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “Hey, have you heard from that cop? The one in Wooded Lake?”

  “Larry Bernard?”

  “If that’s his name, then yes.”

  “No. I haven’t heard from him,” I said. And I wondered if I wanted to. As kindly as the old guy was, I was afraid of what he might tell me with regard to Tweed’s stabbing and the identity of the person who had hit me over the head, if what had happened was a result of my digging too deep and exposing an innocent guy to deadly violence. A few days. That’s all I needed to get my head straight. Just a few days before I delved into that unresolved question again.

  “It would be nice to know who did that to you,” he said, his voice as calm as if he had stated the menu that I had prepared. “How can you move on so easily from that?” he asked, turning around.

  “I’m tired, Cargan,” I said, and that was the truth. Since I had come home several months earlier, I had seen one guy tossed from the balcony to the foyer floor below, found a groom taking his last breaths in the Manor restroom, and now this. I had come home to regroup and to rest, to ply my trade at the place I once called home and now did again. I hadn’t come home to be more stressed than I had been in my previous life. My head still hurt and my heart definitely ached, but was I okay with not hearing from Larry Bernard for a few days? You bet.

  Colleen came into the kitchen. “Cheese course is going over well, Bel. Lovely job you did this time.”

  “This time?” I asked. The girls were nothing if not passive-aggressive when it came to my food. They preferred the food of the old Manor: starchy, meaty, and soggy, at least where vegetables were concerned. The new Manor was a place to which they weren’t accustomed. It was a cut above, something they were still getting used to.

  “Let me know the timing on the entrée,” I said, going over to the window to take a gander at what was happening. Cargan had returned to the stage and was tuning his violin. Mary Ann and Kevin were at the bar, Kevin in the midst of a story that required a lot of gesticulation, his beer slopping over the sides of his pint glass, Mary Ann gazing at him adoringly. Tonight she was in a show-stopping black dress and strappy high heels, revealing a slim figure that was usually hidden beneath baggy nursing scrubs. She laughed at something her husband said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. He was funny, but he wasn’t that funny.

  The servers were still passing canapés; Lieutenant D’Amato reached out and plucked a pig in a blanket from Eileen’s tray, smiling at her and taking the napkin she offered him. Over her head, he spied me in the kitchen and his demeanor changed, a mask of consternation covering his usual jovial expression.

  So there it was: He had gone to Lake Morgan and he had discovered my deception. I backed away from the window and made myself as small as possible between the doorjamb and the wall, knowing the whole time that he knew I was here and eventually, no matter how hard I tried to hide, he was going to want to talk to me. It was just a matter of time. Maybe it would be tonight after his officers and staff enjoyed the dinner and dancing or maybe it would be tomorrow after I spent a night tossing and turning, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t be arrested for obstructing justice or whatever else I was guilty of.

  I had a few questions for the lawman myself, namely, How was it that I could find Amy after
a few intense weeks of looking? and Why did you go to Lake Morgan alone? By myself in the kitchen, my head bent over individual plates of cookies and petit fours, I pondered that, my mind eventually returning to the task at hand, the questions still there but lying dormant. In the dining room, the din got louder as the open bar was frequented and the hour grew late. The boys were into the disco portion of the evening, Cargan’s violin prowess on display during a particularly raucous rendering of “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps, a song that Feeney loved to sing but rarely had the chance. I continued plating the dessert, listening to the fun being had in the room next to the kitchen, enjoying the temporary quiet, not looking up when I heard the door, the one that led from the foyer, open, a few small footsteps approaching the counter.

  “Not quite done yet,” I said, my eyes still focused on the plates. “Give me a few minutes, Colleen,” I said, Eileen not being known for her anticipation of service.

  When she didn’t respond after a few seconds, I lifted my head and took in the sight of the person in front of me. She was tall, slim, and now a brunette, but her face hadn’t changed all that much. There was a wrinkling around her eyes, wrinkles that all of us had now, and the beginning of laugh lines around her mouth suggesting that her years away from the Landing had been full of frivolity and a life well lived. Or maybe it was hardship, the lines suggesting struggle. I decided I couldn’t tell. Her hair was short, not the straight plane that had hung down her back when we were kids.

  “Hi, Bel,” she said casually, as if no time had passed.

  I dropped the piece of flourless chocolate cake I was holding, the breath going out of me like a hot-air balloon, rising and rising until I couldn’t breathe. I got out only one word before I felt the world spinning around me, my feet losing traction on the cake-covered floor.

  “Amy.”

  CHAPTER Forty-eight

  She was still there when I came to, Cargan standing beside her. I hadn’t gone very far, just a minor slump, my hands still gripping the counter, my pants and chef’s coat still pristine and not covered in the goo at my feet. There was a dish towel covering the window that looked into the dining room and a large wooden spoon through the door handles, preventing anyone from coming inside. The door that led to the foyer was bolted shut as well.