Saving Sharkey

by Felicity Nisbet

  “No, lass, that will never be a worry with you.”

  She kissed me with a desperation that was similar to mine, only pulling back to hand me the wine glass we were sharing. “Okay, MacGregor, you’re going to have to work on those flaws. As far as I’m concerned, snoring and having been married once, are not flaws, particularly considering that I myself was married once and was not wise enough to get out until after twenty years.”

  She was serious. I sat upright and set down the wine glass and grabbed her by the arms so she would look me in the eyes. I didn’t mean to be as harsh as I sounded, but I never wanted her to regret a twenty-year period of her life. “Jenny.” If she wasn’t already looking me in the eyes, she would have done so then. I never called her Jenny to her face. “If you had not married Joe, you would not have Matthew and Holly.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes and she nodded. Then she laughed, as if in an attempt to dispel the sobriety of the conversation. “Thank you, MacGregor. Now you’re going to have to work harder than ever to show me one of those flaws, lest I believe that you are perfect. And since we both know that perfection is highly over-rated, I think you’d better do some fast talking.”

  I could certainly oblige that request. I had confessed to my marriage. Now was obviously the time to tell her that I was inclined to throw my dirty socks in the direction of the laundry, assuming that somehow they would find their way there on their own.

  She rolled her eyes when I finished my confession. “That’s a pretty sad excuse for a flaw. Come on, MacGregor, you can do better than that.”

  I scoured my brain for a moment. “Okay, the truth is, I’m not very good at this detective work.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I missed Sam’s coded cry for help when he called me a chemist. And I kept thinking Maureen’s husband, Andy Currie, was up to something—nothing to do with Eddie’s disappearance mind you—but I did keep thinking he was guilty of something. Most likely cheating on his wife.” I flashed on him as he held court at the gym and walked along the waterfront as if he owned the world. “Possibly other things as well.”

  “Why would you have thought that?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I wanted to find him guilty of something. It’s odd but with all the greed and ambition of the ex-wives and ex-girlfriends, the two who struck me as the most ambitious and money hungry, despite their being more subtle about it, are the spouses—Declan’s wife Susan and, of course, Andy. Now why would that be if I were at all skilled at this detective business?”

  “Because you were sensing their greed and ambition, which I must say, I did as well, even though I met them only briefly.”

  “Did you now?” Already I was feeling better. “Even more than blatant Aileen who came right out and said she had a right to Eddie’s money and as much as told the kids to keep their grubby hands off?”

  “Being honest and blatant in your desire does not make it a stronger desire than one that is silent but deep.”

  “Aye, you are wise, McNair. That is precisely how theirs is—silent and deep as if festering inside like a starving child who is about to attack a platter of food. Interesting both of the Sharkey kids would attract that in a spouse. A bit of a coincidence.”

  “If you believe in coincidence, which I know you don’t.”

  “No, I don’t. But I do think I was trying to find fault where there was none. And there is no justification really. Why do I think so little of them? Neither gave me cause to assume these things about them. Not even Andy, the potentially cheating spouse.”

  “Energy?”

  “Aye, that would be it. I was never comfortable with either of them. I particularly did not like Andy’s energy. It was as if he was braced to do something—potential energy and all that—most likely have an affair.”

  “You are not alone in that. I only had the one opportunity to observe him in the pub that evening. Yet I must admit, after observing his endlessly roaming eye, I did not care for the man.”

  “But you haven’t a judgmental bone in your body, McNair.”

  She laughed and snuggled in closer. “I wouldn’t go that far. I strive not to be judgmental, and to see the best in people, but I’m also discerning. I only met them that once but I felt something was off with them. It was almost as if they were conspiring.” She sat upright beside me. “It seemed as if they were the married couple. Secret glances, raised eyebrows, always side by side.”

  “Aye, they do seem to be. It turns out they’ve known each other longer than they’ve known their spouses. They actually introduced each other to their spouses.”

  “And didn’t you say they’re accountants?”

  “Aye. Both of them.”

  “A coincidence again?” she said.

  “At least they work for different firms.”

  “Does either of them handle Eddie’s accounts?”

  “Susan’s.” Now I was sitting up straighter as well. “What is it, McNair? You look pale.”

  “I don’t know. But I think I’m going to try to put all those advanced computer searching skills that Josh has taught me to good use.” She tossed aside her lap blanket, pushed off the couch, and headed for her kitchen table where her laptop sat. Rocky and I followed her. While I put on the kettle, he crawled under the table in case there was a crumb in the deal. Jenny was focused on her computer screen as she typed away. After a few minutes, when I was pouring hot water over fresh blackberry and mint tea that she had dried herself, she looked up at me.

  “Didn’t you mention a Chantal in the group of ex-girlfriends?”

  “Aye, Chantal Michaels. The girlfriend between his second wife Evelyn and his Irish lassie Aileen. Apparently she lives abroad in Portugal.” I carried the two mugs to the table and set them down. “What on earth are you looking at?”

  She sighed and, turning the computer toward me, leaned back in her chair. “Is it a coincidence that Susan Sharkey’s mother’s name is Chantal?”

  I blinked hard as I zeroed in on the computer screen. “Chantal Michaels?”

  Jenny shrugged. She reduced the screen and began another search. Five minutes later she had pulled up a society page with detailed information on Chantal Michaels’ escapades abroad. Front and center was a photograph of Susan Sharkey standing beside her mother, Sharkey’s ex-girlfriend, Chantal Michaels. “Looks like it.”

  “My God.” My throat suddenly felt dry and I reached for my steaming hot tea and managed a sip. “It looks as if we were tailing the wrong spouse.”

  Jenny did some more typing and scrolling. When she stopped, she looked up at me. “Two coincidences for the price of one,” she said.

  “Another one?”

  She smiled. “Aye, first she turns out to be the mother of Eddie’s son’s wife. And now it looks as if she spends a couple months a year in Thailand.”

  “Do you want to call Charlie or should I?” I asked, but Jenny had already pressed his number into the phone.

  We put it on speaker so we could both talk at once, detailing the information we had discovered during the past hour.

  After several “Oh my God’s,” Charlie said, “Well done, lassie.”

  “MacGregor helped too, you know.”

  “Ah, I’m sure. What did he do, make tea for you while you figured it out?”

  I laughed as I glanced down at the mug in my hand. “Charlie, I just had a flash. How quickly can you get hold of cell phone records?”

  “As quickly as I need to.”

  “Good, get Susan Sharkey’s and email them to us?”

  “Will do.”

  “And while you’re at it, locate any phone numbers associated with Chantal Michaels.”

  “You want to see how many calls she’s made to her mother recently?” Jenny asked after we had hung up.

  I nodded. “And I want to see who else she’s been talking to. And if there have been any calls to Tara Island.”

  “Good thinking.” Jenny went to the refrigerator and pulled out a la
rge tray of home-baked scones. Raspberry, apricot, blackberry, and chocolate chip if my nose was as accurate as I liked to think it was. She really must have been worried about me while I was gone. Baking scones was just one of her trusty outlets. I wondered how many pots she had thrown on her wheel.

  I smiled as she selected one of each flavor to set on a plate. “Kept yourself busy while I was gone, did you?”

  “Anything to keep from worrying about you and Charlie.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Not enough.”

  I really did have to work on my communication skills. Ah, a flaw.

  After indulging in our snack, she once again checked the computer to find an email from Charlie with the cell phone records attached and two numbers for Chantal Michaels.

  “Well done, Charlie,” she said aloud, clicking to open the attachment. After a quick glance at the numbers, she looked over at me and said, “I’m sure Charlie’s figured it out by now as well. It looks as if she’s been on the phone to her mother almost daily.”

  “Thailand?”

  “Part of the time. Then Portugal.”

  “Anything else?”

  “What’s the number on Tara?”

  I pulled out my cell phone and located it.

  “Eight calls to Tara over the past couple weeks,” she said.

  “Pretty much clinches our suspicions. Somehow they conspired with Mok to kidnap Eddie. The question is why?”

  “Money for them.” Jenny answered. “Tara Island for him. Perfect for a smuggler.”

  I nodded. “Anything else?”

  Jenny scrolled up and down the bill a couple times and turned the computer screen toward me as she pointed out a number. “Does this one look familiar? She calls it several times daily.”

  I searched in my cell phone to be certain, then looked at Jenny. “It does indeed.”

  She sighed and I knew she had her suspicions. “Who does it belong to?”

  “None other than Andy Currie.”

  This time Jenny’s sigh was deeper and I knew she was thinking of the two siblings who had been deceived and betrayed. “It looks as if you weren’t tailing the wrong spouse after all. You just should have been tailing both of them.”“Aye, indeed we should have been.” My sigh sounded as distressed as Jenny’s had. I was seeing Maureen’s hopeful face crumbling before my eyes. This was not a task to which I was looking forward.

  “Well, it looks as if it wasn’t a coincidence that the two college friends introduced each other to their current spouses who stood to inherit a fortune.”

  “Och, no. Nor was it a coincidence that the two couples married within months of each other. They must have been plotting this one over a long period of time.”

  “A good way to inherit a fortune, marry the inheritors.”

  “Aye, but then they became impatient . . . or were concerned that Eddie would marry a younger woman again and the fortune might go to her instead of the siblings, so they decided to do him in before that could happen.”

  Jenny nodded. “I fear you are correct in your hypothesis, MacGregor.” She turned her attention back to the computer, minimizing the screen and returning to the social world of Chantal Michaels. She scrolled down the page for a couple minutes, clicking to enlarge a photograph near the bottom. Turning to look up at me, she said, “If Maureen hadn’t called you off of the job, you might have discovered this connection a lot sooner.”

  I stared at the photograph. Andy Currie and Susan Sharkey, holding each other in something far from a platonic embrace, while gazing into each other’s eyes.

  I heard Jenny’s next thought as if she had spoken it. I said it for her. “Or if we had involved you, we would have solved this entire case a lot sooner.”

  She smiled up at me. She appreciated my mind-reading ability . . . and my insight. “Ah, finally a flaw,” she said.

  “It won’t happen again. Nor will my not calling you when you’re worrying about me.”

  “Good. So, no more keeping me out of the loop?”

  “No more keeping you out of the loop. But I was only following my intuition as you’ve taught me to do.”

  “Ah, then you’re almost forgiven.”

  As Jenny emailed the photograph to Charlie, I pressed his number on my cell. “I assume you’ve come to the same conclusions we have.”

  “Aye, I’m sure I have,” he responded. “And now we know how and why Sarai ended up working for Eddie.”

  “That’s right, Andy asked him to hire her after his elderly client died. And now we know why Maureen and Declan weren’t kidnapped. They needed them alive and well and married to them—community property and all.”

  “Indeed,” Charlie concurred.

  “So, do you want me to be there when you confront Andy Currie and Susan Sharkey?” I asked.

  “Och no. I do not wish to incur my daughter’s wrath for taking you away after you have only just returned to her. I can get Eddie to help.”

  Jenny, who had her ear pressed to the phone laughed. “We’re coming, Charlie. If for no other reason than to lend moral support to Maureen and Declan.”

  “Good idea, lass. Good idea.”

  “Will you tell Eddie all of this first?”

  “I shall. I will call him now—he should be back from Tara Island shortly. I will suggest that he have a gathering of the clan tomorrow evening. What time will you arrive then?”

  Jenny chuckled. “We’ll call you . . . as we turn onto Pleasant Beach Drive.”

  Charlie laughed and said softly into the phone. “I love you, lassie.”

  Sneaky Scotsman. He was stealing my line.

  Chapter 25

  We sat on the bar stools in front of Sharkey’s beloved bar, sipping Belhaven, Jenny and I together. Sarai was busy in the kitchen preparing a chicken curry for the evening meal. Sharkey had told her he would order out but she was happy to be home in her kitchen. He did keep checking on her to be certain her arm was not in pain. She would simply smile up at him and kiss him lightly on the cheek in answer to his concerns.

  Jack Sawyer, one of Charlie’s policemen friends was sipping away on an alcohol-free spritzer. After all, he was there in the line of duty. His partner, Rochelle Turner, was drinking the same. In order to prevent any early warning signs, their car was hidden in the garage.

  “Have you said anything to Maureen and Declan?” Charlie asked Sharkey.

  He shook his head. “Och, no, you told me not to for fear that they could not keep the information from their spouses who would then be certain to disappear as quickly as they could.”

  “It will not be easy to hear,” I said.

  “No, it will not be, particularly for Declan. Although Maureen is the one whose heart is easily broken, I do believe she knows that her husband has his shortcomings, unlike Declan who misguidedly seems to idolize his wife.”

  “You sound as if you do not care for either of them,” Charlie said.

  “I must say I never really did take to either, particularly Andy who had a need to always show me up in some way or another. To say nothing of his roving eye. Susan, although she appears fond of me on the surface—I never quite trusted that display.”

  “Dismissed it as insincere?” I asked.

  “Precisely.”

  “Well, we will have to do all we can to support Maureen and Declan through this,” Jenny said.

  “I am sure they will meet someone worthy of their affection one of these days,” Sharkey said, glancing toward the kitchen.

  Jenny smiled and nodded. “First we will give them a chance to heal.”

  “What I still don’t understand,” I said, “is, if they wanted your death to appear to be an accident, why would they send you a threatening letter?” I glanced from Sharkey to Charlie and said, “Or did they?”

  “Och, did I forget to fill you in on that then?” Charlie asked.

  I glared at him. But he had good reason. I was preoccupied. “Out with it.”

  “Father O’Malley called me las
t night. It turns out his brother Sean had been to confession. He did give him permission to convey the gist of that confession which was that he had sent the most recent letters of threat to Eddie.”

  “It turns out he only joined the team in order to determine how he could best inflict pain upon me,” Sharkey added.

  “Then why did he aid in your rescue?” I asked.

  “Guilt,” Charlie said.

  “Apparently Charlie helped him to realize the truth and to see the error of his ways,” Sharkey said.

  “Ah, I’m not surprised. And the slashed tires? Was he responsible for those?”

  “No, he says not, but I’m reasonably certain it was one of the fellows at the pub that evening whose wife had taken a shine to me.”

  Not surprising. “And the brakes?”

  Charlie and Sharkey laughed. “A case of mistaken identity. Apparently the offender was after a different Lincoln Navigator that was parked nearby. He got the wrong one.”

  Not unfortunate, I decided, considering that it was one of the factors that made us take Sharkey’s disappearance more seriously. “And how did you discover that?”

  “I got a phone call this morning,” Charlie said. “Just got hired to find the culprit who did it. He got the right Lincoln this time. Only it was in a more precarious location.”

  “Was anyone injured?” I asked.

  “Fortunately not badly.”

  “Well, they all did us a favor,” I said, “Sean, the tire slasher, and the brake vandalizer.”

  “How do you mean?” Sharkey asked.

  I took a sip of my Belhaven before answering. “They gave us more reason to think you had met with foul play and indeed needed saving.”

  Sharkey laughed and raised his glass in the air. “To the threateners and vandalizers then!”

  We all raised our glasses and drank.

  “But before anyone is badly hurt, I need to find out who’s behind the cutting of the brakes,” Charlie said.

  He glanced over at Jenny who quickly said, “Don’t even think about it, Charlie McNair. I am taking a break—no pun intended—from solving cases—both yours and the ones I seem to stumble over.”