“No, we don’t have one,” Andy responded. “Not yet anyway. We’re still taking advantage of the fact that Eddie has two, I’m afraid.”
“We don’t either,” Declan offered. “No need really, with Dad having the two.”
“Do you think you’ll buy one eventually?” I pushed.
Declan shrugged and Andy scooped up another bite of his trifle, then said, “I’ve always liked the idea of owning one.” As noncommittal as a comment could get.
“Dad,” Maureen interjected. “How much real estate do you own anyway? How much will Declan and I inherit?” She sent a venomous glance in Aileen’s direction.
“Don’t count your chickens, Maureen,” returned Aileen. “Have you not heard of common law marriage? Your father and I have been living together for five years now, so we have.”
“Hold on here,” Sharkey interjected. “I’m not sure I like the direction this conversation has taken. If you had your preference, you’d all have me in the grave tomorrow so you can get your avaricious hands on my money!”
“Not so, Dad,” Maureen said, cozying up to her father. “I’m just pointing out—”
“Well I’d just as soon you not. I will decide what to do with my money and my property. Although after this conversation, I’m more determined than ever to spend my last dime before I croak.”
Charlie and I exchanged glances. This was far too personal, but how to make a graceful exit?
I looked around the table at the three couples. Something was amiss, something Jenny would have been certain to intuit. Whereas my dense scientist brain could only hypothesize about what had turned into an immensely disturbing gathering of mismatched sorts. Sharkey with hostile girlfriend Aileen. Dreamer son Declan with his ambitious wife. Outspoken and liberal drinker daughter Maureen with her distracted husband who seemed more interested in checking out the cleavages of the other women in the room, including the housekeeper’s.
Ah, family dynamics, something I’d not had the privilege of experiencing in many years. But I had heard the term dysfunctional bantered about enough to recognize it when I saw it.
The conversation calmed down to a quiet roar, and I was able to tune it out. I caught Charlie’s raised eyebrow as he looked from me to the odd couples and back again. My smile was slight but enough to convey that I agreed completely. The sooner we made our departure, the better. However, both of us having been raised in semi-proper Scottish homes, felt obligated to stay long enough to avoid being accused of eating and running. And, although knowing Edward Sharkey for only a wee while, we knew he would not let us leave before the coupe de grace, his prize thirty-year-old Glenfiddich.
Suddenly the volume had risen again, giving me an intense headache. I longed to be home alone in my lovely leather chair, beside the fire, reading in silence, or better yet, in bed—not alone. It was a dream I had suffered many a long night.
“Gentlemen,” Sharkey said, standing up and looking from Charlie to me. “I suggest we retire to the bar as planned.
“Actually, I think we’d best be going,” I said.
“Before we share a dram? I think not. However, the rest of you are welcome to say good-night.” He looked at Maureen and Declan, his eyebrow raised. I wondered if that had been all he needed to convince them to go to bed when they were bairns.
“If you want to get rid of us, just say so, Dad,” Maureen said, pushing back her chair.
“I just did,” Sharkey said, smiling. “Good-night, everyone.”
Aileen stood up and followed as he headed for the bar room, but before she could take more than a few steps, he turned and said in an icy tone, “Don’t you have some studying to do?”
Aileen frowned and shook her head. “It can wait.”
While the two younger couples said their good-byes, Sharkey’s gaze did not leave Aileen’s face, and it revealed anything but affection. Clearly he was still fuming over the conversation about inheritance. As soon as the others were out of earshot, he said, “Where the hell did you come up with that common law crap, Aileen?”
She raised her chin in the air as if to challenge him. “Well, you could make an honest woman of me and then your daughter would shut up about your money, sure she would.”
“This is not the time. And I told you I was never getting married again.”
“Well, that’s to be seen,” she said, stepping back and finally taking the blatant hint he had expressed earlier. “Good-night, then. I hope to see youse gentlemen soon.”
“I apologize for all that,” Sharkey said, motioning us toward the bar. He was still shaking his head as he made his way toward our promised whisky. “Maybe my children would rest more easily if I told them that they are the sole inheritors of my estate and that my money is well protected.”
I took that to mean that the man had offshore and possibly foreign accounts.
“So why don’t you tell them?” Charlie asked.
Sharkey chuckled. “What, and let them rest easily?”
“Excuse me, sir, if there’s nothing else—” Sarai appeared from the kitchen.
“Eddie,” Sharkey corrected her. “There’s nothing else. You go ahead to bed, Sarai. I’m sure it’s been a long day for you.”
“Thank you, Mr. . . . Eddie. Good-night.”
Sharkey’s gaze escorted the woman from the room.
“Is she okay?” Charlie asked.
Sharkey shook his head. “I’m not really sure. Why do you ask?”
“She seemed on the verge of tears.”
“Ah, Aileen can do that to the best of them.”
Charlie took the glass of Scotch that Sharkey had poured, gazing at it in admiration. It was not often we indulged in such a treat. “I suspect it’s something else.”
“You are the detective, so I’ll defer to you. What did you notice?”
“Nothing more than the hidden tears and the tension in her stance. How long has she lived in this country? Although her accent is thick, her English is excellent.”
“I believe she spoke it well when she arrived. She hasn’t been here long.”
“And how did she gain entry to the United States?”
“I don’t know,” Sharkey admitted. “She had been working for an elderly client of my son-in-law’s, but he passed away. Before he died, he asked Andy to help her find a position so he came to me. It was easy to accommodate her because my cleaning lady at the time was planning to move out of the area. A pleasant coincidence.”
Synchronicity, I thought, knowing Jenny would assess it as such.
“And she lives here? On the premises?” Charlie asked in that interrogator’s voice he gets at appropriate times.
“Yes, she does that. I have over five thousand square feet here. It’s not exactly a hardship now is it? Although Aileen makes it appear to be.” He raised his glass in the air and Charlie and I joined him in our first sip of the promised Scotch, all three of us savoring it equally. “Gentlemen, slainte!”
A moment later we again raised our glasses, all appearing at a loss for something to toast.
“To women everywhere,” Charlie offered ironically.
“Ah yes,” Sharkey said. “To women everywhere, except in my own home.” He took a sip and shook his head. “I really must apologize. It’s never calm with Maureen and Aileen in the same room, but they aren’t normally reduced to nudging me into the grave.”
“Visible wealth does seem to bring out the greed in people,” Charlie offered.
“How true that is. One of my ex-girlfriends, the one right before Aileen, was the same way. Actually, come to think of it, so were my ex-wives. But Chantal was more blatant about it. I dumped her when I realized she was only after my money. Or did she dump me when she realized I was not going to marry her? Whichever. The curse of wealth.”
“Nae problem with me. I’ve enough tae get me through and a little to spare,” said Charlie, his accent becoming slightly more pronounced with each sip of the whiskey. “I’ll be just fine if I stay clear of the instit
ution of marriage a wee bit longer, until I die, that is. Unless I find a wealthy woman to support me, of course.”
Sharkey shook his head. “Never again for me. ‘Tis far too complicated.”
“I’ve plenty of wealth to last a few lifetimes,” I said, “But no children or woman fighting over any potential inheritance.” Although I happily would have liked to have had.
“Lucky man, you are,” Sharkey said as he raised his glass. “To bachelorhood!”
In unison the two of them again swallowed a sip of their Scotch.
“I’m not certain I wish to drink to that. I’m not at all certain I’m as committed to bachelorhood as you both are.”
“Is tat right?” Sharkey asked, his Irish accent kicking in a bit more with each sip of the whiskey as well.
“It is. I would definitely settle down if the right woman would have me.”
Charlie set his glass down and reached over and slapped me on the back. “Well, she cannae agree to settle down with you if you don’t ask her now, can she?”
“Aye, this is true, Charlie. Very true.”
“If you’ve your heart set on someone, what’s holding you back?” Sharkey inquired.
“Well, her twenty-year marriage did cause a wee bit of a hindrance.”
“She’s married?”
“Not any more.”
“So?”
“So, she seems to have become romantically involved with another man.”
Sharkey swallowed the last sip of his drink and shook his head. “I like you, Malcolm. But I have no sympathy for a man who behaves like an idiot. Letting a woman get away once is idiotic. Twice? Unforgivable.”
Charlie’s raised eyebrow did not escape me. In fact, if I’d been looking in the mirror at that moment, I too would have been looking at myself in disgust.
* * *
“I fear the young girlfriend is soon to be history,” Charlie said as we sauntered slowly down the street toward our respective homes, grateful not to be driving.
“I fear the same. I also fear how she will react when Sharkey gives her the boot.”
“Ah, there is that.” Charlie stopped walking for a moment, more to catch his thought than his breath or balance. “An entertaining evening it was. But something seemed terribly off.”
I inhaled a breath of fresh air and relief. “Besides the dysfunctional family laden with resentment and anger?”
“Aye, besides that.”
“The mismatched couples perhaps?” I offered.
“That they are,” Charlie said. “All three of them I fear. Next time Sharkey invites us to join them, I think I will attempt to persuade Jenny to come along. She might be able to give us some insight.”
Charlie and I always had thought alike.
“Something to which, I daresay, you will not object.”
“No objection from me, Charlie.”
He slapped me on the back. “Didn’t think so. Now, are you finally going to admit that you’re in love with my beautiful daughter?”
I laughed at his lack of subtlety. “I don’t have to admit it. You already know.”
* * *
It did not require a scientist or a private detective to recognize that Edward Sharkey was more pleasant and relaxed when no women were around—at least the women to whose claws—and tongues—he seemed to have subjected himself.
There were two soccer practices during the following week. Spending two days in Bellingham in order to deliver a lecture and attend a meeting, I was able to be present at only one. But it did provide an opportunity to enjoy the man’s company outside the confines of his stressful home.
As usual, he was the center of the conversation as we stood around after practice. There was something endearing about the man. I could understand what attracted people to him, both women and men, albeit for different reasons. Clearly women were enchanted by his charm and good looks—and money. On the other hand, it was the life he lived and the stories he told that made men wish they could live theirs in the same way, although that did leave room for envy.
“How do you keep up with the girl?” Archie Sinclair asked as we watched Aileen run off from the field to her own practice.
“Do ye always go for the young ones?” Terry Malloy asked.
“I admit since the first wife I have,” Sharkey said. “After all, I want someone who can keep up with me.” He chuckled as he said it.
“He does well to find the young beauties wherever he goes,” Father O’Malley said, a sparkle in his own eyes.
Apparently his younger brother Sean was not so enamored with the escapades of Edward Sharkey. He grunted something unintelligible and left the group of us behind. Still miffed at our number of losses or was it something else this time?
“That trip you made to Brazil a few years back must have been quite something. I did hear some rumors,” Terry said, “But never heard it from the source himself.”
“Och, I did tell it a few times I’m sure. You must not have been here.”
Terry’s eyebrows rose and fell in a lecherous look. “Did you find any nude beaches?”
“Not nude, but topless. It was a most interesting trip.”
The silence encouraged him to continue, as did Father O’Malley who said, “By all means, tell us the story again. There is not so much room for embellishment in this one, as there is no scoring of goals involved.”
“Ah, but there is very possibly the scoring of something else,” Terry offered. “Is there not?”
Sharkey chuckled. “Well, there is Miss Brazil in this story.”
“Miss Brazil?” Terry asked.
“Aye, a beautiful lass I met on one of those very beaches of which you speak. She accompanied me on a bicycle trip down the coast. Quite a trek it turned out to be.”
“Was this the story that included the Scottish mafia?” Father O’Malley joked.
“Aye, indeed.” Sharkey did not miss a beat, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
“Tell it again,” Terry encouraged.
And tell it he did, embellishing the parts about Miss Brazil who wasn’t really Miss Brazil but apparently could have been, to say nothing of the portions that included a rather large Scotsman who would have fit the image of the Scottish mafia well, if there were such a thing.
The men who had remained for the story laughed heartily throughout.
“Tell me, laddie, how do you manage to find mischief wherever you go?” Father O’Malley asked. “And always get yourself out of it in a most enjoyable way?”
Sharkey chuckled. “Och, I have had more than my fair share of adventures, I admit.”
“That you have, that you have,” the priest said, patting the spirited Irishman on the back and joining the group as they headed for the pub.
After the others had collected their gear and left the field, Sharkey turned to Charlie and me. “Now, tell me lads, since we’re alone, have you continued with your surveillance?”
“Aye, for the pertinent times, that is. We’ve tag teamed,” Charlie explained. “When neither Malcolm nor I is available, I have my men in place.”
“I must admit I’m surprised that either of you has the time for surveillance.”
Charlie nodded. “Depending on the situation, I still on occasion do it myself. It’s not usually necessary. And Malcolm rarely does it. When he assists me, it’s normally in the form of lending his expertise. Unless he’s desperately needed, that is.”
“Or sufficiently intrigued,” I added. Which I had to admit, I was in this particular case.
“Ah, that makes sense.”
“The truth is,” Charlie said, “the mundane activities and cases gain appeal as I age, it seems. I fear I’ve left the more glamorous cases behind in my youth. However, most of my cases don’t really require me to spend hours observing someone. I tend toward the mingling technique.”
When Sharkey raised his eyebrows in question, Charlie explained. “I usually find a way into the social realm of my suspects so I can observe them fi
rsthand—”
“While enjoying a drink or two,” I added.
“Aye, there is that.”
“I take it you’re quite successful at—for lack of a better word—worming your way into their social or work environments?”
“That I am,” Charlie said, glancing up at me. “Or Jenny is.”
I smiled as I recalled the case that Jenny had taken over for him which had resulted in her finding the culprit. It was also the case that led to the end of her marriage.
“I get the distinct feeling that you are very clever at what you do.”
“That he is,” I said. “Don’t ever underestimate the skills of a Scottish detective.”
“So, have you made any progress with Aileen or Andy?”
Charlie looked to me since I had been more on the job than he.
“Nothing much to report other than what I’ve already told you. I do have one amendment to make regarding Aileen however.”
Sharkey’s ears perked up, if someone’s ears can actually visibly perk up. “And what would that be?”
“I’ve continued to observe her—well disguised and from a distance of course—and was convinced her activities were innocent, that is until I realized that what I thought was a study group turned out to be an American-based support group of the IRA.”
Sharkey groaned. “Och, not that again. I thought she had given that up. It must be that her brothers are here and have riled her Northern Irish rebel again. How did you figure out that it’s not really a study group?”
“What tipped me off, I suppose, was that they all had Irish accents, Northern Irish accents. And from the frowns on their faces and the intense tones of their voices, I was fairly convinced they were not just a group of homesick people longing for the green hills of Ireland.”
Sharkey shook his head. “Will the lassie never learn? Anything else?”
“Well, she did seem particularly affectionate with two of the male members of this group.”
“Affectionate in what way?” he asked, with not a flinch of jealousy.
“Hugs, well, actually they all hugged as they greeted one another, but these two seemed particularly fond of her.”
Saving Sharkey Page 5