“At that time of the mornin’?”
His eyes lit up. “It’s the best. Have you ever seen the sun rise over it?” Of course she had. She’d seen the sun rise over it, the sun set behind it, the rain kiss it and make it shimmy, the fog shroud it and render it mysterious, and a few rare snowstorms that made it downright mystical. He thought just because they lived around it and among it all their lives that they didn’t appreciate it? He was wrong.
But he wasn’t really asking her about it, so she just let him keep talking. “My God. There’s nothing like it. Anyway. That morning, I wasn’t actually out for a run.”
Siobhán’s ears perked up. “You weren’t?”
“I was just coming back from the poker game. I was a bit drunk. But not too drunk to notice a gorgeous redhead running toward me.” He flashed that darn disarming smile again.
Houlihan’s. That was the only pub that held all-night poker tournaments. The players were fierce serious about it too. The Yank must have money and a bit of sense about him if they were letting him join the ranks. And it would certainly be an easy alibi to check. Anyone who’d spent all night in a poker tournament couldn’t have been the killer. “Did ye win?”
“Lost every last nickel,” he said with a sheepish grin. Siobhán didn’t realize that they were just standing there staring at each other until she felt a bump at her backside. She whirled around to find Gráinne grinning at her. Why, the cheek! She did that on purpose.
“Sorry,” Gráinne said. “Couldn’t help it, like. With ye both just standing in the middle of the floor, like, eyeballing each other.”
Siobhán would have been mighty tempted to give Gráinne a slap if they hadn’t been surrounded by witnesses. She turned to Chris, hoping he wouldn’t notice her cheeks were once again aflame. “If you’d like a table, I was just clearing that one,” Siobhán said gesturing to it.
“Thank you.” By now Eoin had removed the plates and tray, but Ciarán was doing a poor job of sweeping up the bits. Ear-wagging was what he was doing.
Siobhán took the broom and dustpan and nudged him back to the kitchen. When she followed, a few seconds later, Ann and Gráinne accosted her. They were all shiny hair flippin’ and big eyes twitchin’.
“Who’s that?” Gráinne said with her signature hip jut even more pronounced.
“Who’s what?” Siobhán said.
“That gorgeous man,” Ann said. Her hair was straightened, held back with a headband. When did she stop wearing the braids? What else was Siobhán missing?
“Don’t go gawking at the customers now,” Siobhán said.
“You were the one gawkin’,” Gráinne said. “You were positively drooling, like.”
“Go away with ye,” Siobhán said. Oh, Gawd. Was she? “He’s American. His name is Chris.”
“Is he a movie star?” Ann asked.
“Don’t be daft,” Eoin said.
“He could be, like,” Ann said.
Siobhán agreed, but she didn’t want to get in the middle of it. She’d often suspected that Eoin was self-conscious about his looks. He didn’t have James’s build or Ciarán’s sweet face. He was a bit of an ugly duckling; Siobhán hated even thinking it, but it was true. She hoped he could just feel good about himself and that he’d meet a nice girl who loved him for who he was inside.
“Back to work,” Siobhán said. She glanced at the clock on the far wall. “We’ve still another hour to go.”
“We should stay open longer today,” Eoin said. “Make up for lost time.”
“No. We need to get back to our routine.” And by that she meant her scooter. She was dying to ride it again. And she had to start collecting alibis. It was no good chatting about it in the bistro. Very unprofessional to ask for alibis when all people wanted was brown bread and Barry’s tea.
Siobhán returned to the dining room but let Gráinne take Chris’s order. Macdara was still there, and the last thing she needed was to give him another reason to be browned off with her. She was just going back to see if he wanted more brown bread and tea when she caught Ciarán at his table, chatting away.
“Would you like to see our list of suspects?” Ciarán said loudly to Macdara. Several heads turned their way. Ciarán grinned through it, oblivious of the effect he was having on the twitchy patrons.
“He’s just jokin’ ye,” Siobhán said pinching the back of Ciarán’s arm. “We don’t have a list of suspects.”
“Ow!” Ciarán said. He yanked his arm away and looked up at her. “We do so. It’s in the kitchen taped to the back wall.”
“I thought you were going to drop this,” Macdara said to Siobhán in a low voice.
“John Butler didn’t do it,” Ciarán said, totally unaware of how loud he was. “He has an alibi.”
“I thought the butler always did it,” someone remarked under their breath, evoking laughter from the table. It died down the second Siobhán fixed them with a glare.
“Does he now?” Macdara said.
“He was in Cork City the night of the murder,” Ciarán said. “We should have checked that before breaking into his office.”
Siobhán grabbed Ciarán’s arm and whispered into his ear. “Shut up.” This time Ciarán got it. He shuffled off to the kitchen.
“Please tell me you didn’t break into John Butler’s office,” Macdara said.
“When can I visit James?”
“They should be done processing him today. I’ll give them a call and see when visiting hours are.”
Siobhán poured more hot water into his cup and set another plate of brown bread down but kept her hand on the plate as if she might yank it away. “Have you found out anything on the case at all?”
Macdara glanced at the brown bread. “That’s none of your business.”
“I was about to take my break. Would you like to see our garden out back?”
Macdara glanced at Chris Gorden’s table. “Are you sure it’s me you want to ask?”
“I’ll see you out there,” Siobhán said.
“I’m not talking shop,” Macdara said.
“Nobody asked you to,” Siobhán said. She took off her apron, set it over the counter, and headed out to the backyard.
The air was fresh, and the sun was out. Siobhán gazed around the yard, taking note of where the gardai had trampled the grass and the flowers. A rectangular patch where they used to have a vegetable garden was withered and brown. They hadn’t kept it up; there was too much to do. Macdara’s eyes landed on her scooter, parked just outside the back door. She really wanted to bring it inside.
“Did you get the locks changed?” Macdara asked, as if reading her mind.
“Séamus is going to get to them,” she said.
“I’ll have a word with him,” Macdara said. “The sooner the better.”
Siobhán put her hands on her hips and studied him. “Why, Garda Flannery.”
“What?”
“You wouldn’t be so worried about me safety if you thought James was the killer.”
Macdara kicked the ground with the tip of his boot, digging up dirt. “It still doesn’t look good for him.” He glanced at her scooter. “Is that yours?”
“With James gone, I need it to run errands.”
“Be careful. Don’t ride it in the rain.”
“That would be almost every day, like.”
“It’s not safe in the rain.”
“I’ll be careful. What have you learned since we last talked?”
“Nothing to worry your head about,” Macdara said.
“What did Sheila say about the rubbish bag and the broken glass?”
Macdara sighed. She was wearing him down. “Sheila and Pio were having a domestic. Sheila threw a vase. It shattered against the wall. Pio threw out the broken glass, but she went to fetch it to see if she could put it back together.”
“Sheila’s allergic to flowers.”
“So you keep saying,” Macdara said.
“It’s true. She can’t have them in he
r shop. So why would she care so much about a vase?”
“Maybe she puts artificial flowers in it.”
“I’ve never seen her do that.”
“Damn it, Siobhán. I can’t arrest someone for throwing a vase or bringing a rubbish bag inside the house.” Macdara swiped off his cap and slammed it against his thigh.
“What about her black eye?”
“They didn’t admit to that, now, but it doesn’t look recent. A week maybe. I’ll drop off a number of a professional I know who deals with domestic situations. But the rest will be up to her. Although for all we know, Sheila’s the one doing the abusing. She must have twenty stone on him.”
“That’s not nice.”
“The world isn’t always nice. You know yourself.”
“What if Niall was blackmailing the two of them? They could be co-murderers.”
Macdara stared at her. He wasn’t as traditionally handsome as Chris Gorden, but she liked his rough edges . . . as long as they weren’t aimed at her. Right now he was looking at her as if he felt sorry for her. She didn’t like that either.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to go to college.”
“What are ye on about?” she asked.
“You’ve got a good mind. And a good heart. You should go to college.”
“Who would mind the young ones? Run the bistro?”
“I’m just saying. I hope you find a way.”
“Well, right now I’m trying to find a killer.”
“That’s not your job. It’s mine.”
“What else have you got?”
“I think you’re onto something about Niall blackmailing someone else. I’m trying to follow up on that.”
“Don’t forget to ask them where they were the night of the murder.”
“Why, thank you very much. Don’t forget to preheat the cooker.”
Siobhán shook her head. Macdara smiled. She smiled back, then turned away when the eye contact lasted a bit too long. She meant what she said. She was trying to catch a killer, and there wasn’t time for anything else. “What do we know about the Yank?”
“The one you were flirting with in there?”
“I was not flirting.”
“You were flirting.”
“You catch more flies with honey.”
“Yea? Well, why in the feck would you want to catch flies in the first place?” He had her there. “What do you know about him?” she asked again.
Macdara sighed. “The usual shite. Said he’s traveling around Ireland, taking a year off college, looking for his family crest, writing a book, for all I know.”
“Any connection to Niall?”
“Could be.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I just said ‘Could be.’”
He was definitely jealous. “Did you check the CCTVs?”
“Yes,” he said after what seemed to be a silent deliberation. “I’m in the process of checking all the CCTVs.”
“In the process? Meaning you haven’t checked them?”
“What should I be looking for? The killer to stare into one of the cameras and confess?”
“Séamus said he left O’Rourke’s at half one and headed home. You can verify that. And maybe one camera will prove that it wasn’t James chasing Niall around town.”
“Who said anything about chasing?”
“I think the killer was chasing Niall. That’s how they ended up back here.” Once again Siobhán looked around the garden.
“It rained that night,” Macdara said. “We couldn’t get any footprints.”
Siobhán’s eye landed on the glass jar where the spare key had been hidden. Although Siobhán had long since removed the key, the jar was still resting on top of the hole where it had been originally buried. The gardai hadn’t considered it evidence because nothing had seemed amiss at the time. But something about the way the sun was shining on it set off alarm bells. There was definitely something not quite right about it. It wasn’t the same jar. It looked close enough, but theirs had a green tint, and this one was blue. She gasped.
“What?” Macdara said. She ran up to the jar. She held it up.
“It’s not the same jar.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Our old jar was impossible to open. The lid was rusted shut. You would have had to break it open to get the key. Wait. Gráinne and Ann heard glass breaking, remember?”
“You think it was someone smashing open that jar?” Macdara said.
“I know it was. They replaced it, hoping we wouldn’t notice.” And she almost didn’t. She was going to have to keep her eyes open every second. “Whoever killed Niall must have known where we kept the spare key.”
“Any idea who?” Macdara didn’t look convinced, but at least he was considering the idea.
“It would be easier to list the people who didn’t know where we hid our spare key. Anyone who was ever back here chatting with my mam could have seen it.”
“Check with your siblings. Make sure they didn’t break the jar and were afraid to mention it.”
“This could be our big break.”
“How so?”
Siobhán shoved the jar at him. “I don’t know. Check it for fingerprints. Take it house to house and see who has a matching set of jars.”
“Everyone has jars like these. I think there are three or four in my cupboards alone.”
“But it’s something, isn’t it?”
“Everything is something,” Macdara says. “Until it’s proved to be nothing.”
The back door opened, and Ann poked her head out. “Alison Tierney is here to see you,” she said. “And she looks as if she’s swallowed a French frog.” With that, Ann whirled around and let the back door slam.
Macdara looked at Siobhán for a long time. “A French frog?”
“I never have any idea what’s going to come out of their gobs next or why,” Siobhán said shaking her head. Macdara started to laugh, the second time Siobhán had heard him do that. Soon she was laughing with him.
“A French frog,” Macdara said again as they went back inside. “Do you think he wears a wee beret?”
“Le croak,” Siobhán said.
Chapter 25
Alison Tierney was seated at the table by the window, dressed in a lovely cream suit with matching heels and handbag. Her dark hair was shiny and straight, as if she’d just stepped out of a salon. When Siobhán arrived, she was texting on her mobile.
“Sit down,” she ordered without even looking up. Siobhán wished she were holding the tea kettle so she could pretend to stumble and give her a bit of a scalding. Just a touch.
“I’d rather stand. We’re very busy, as you can see.”
Alison set her phone down and scanned the bistro as if she’d forgotten where she was. Macdara stood by the back door, watching them. Alison zeroed in on him; then her eyes flicked back to Siobhán, and the corner of her lips curled up. Siobhán couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a smile or a snarl. “It’s a bit of a surprise, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“To see others dining in a place where a man has been murdered.” She said it loud enough for others to turn their heads.
“Lower your voice. Those aren’t even the facts.”
“What am I missing?”
Siobhán bent down. “He wasn’t killed inside the bistro. He was brought here. Someone is trying to set us up.”
“That’s not the talk in town.”
“How would you know? You don’t even live in this town.”
“Gossip flows the same way the wind blows.”
Up your arse. “If you’re here about the rent, I’ll have it to ye by Monday week.”
“And yet you just bought a brand-new scooter.”
What a Nosy Nellie. Now Siobhán really wished she had the tea kettle. “That was a work necessity.”
Alison’s perfectly tweezed eyebrows raised in surprise. “I didn’t realize it took a scooter to run a bistro,”
she said. “Silly me.”
“It does when you have errands to run and you’re down a man.”
“Speaking of James,” Alison said. “I’m truly shocked to hear what he’s done.” She put her hand over her heart.
“Excuse me?”
Alison reached into her fancy alligator handbag and produced a stack of papers, which she smoothed out across the table with the relish of a blackjack dealer. “As the oldest, James is the only one on the lease since your parents departed.” Departed. As if they’d packed up their suitcases and sailed away on a ship.
In an instant Siobhán wondered whether James had killed Niall. It was only on account of the rage she felt toward Alison at that moment, the likes of which she’d never known. She could imagine it now. How darkness could sweep one up in its funnel cloud and cause a person to do something she never imagined she could.
“Did you hear what I said? Without James, this lease is no longer valid.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“There’s a clause. If James abandons the property, the lease is null and void.”
“I’ll sign a new lease. Is that what you want?”
“No. I want you out.”
Even if a new owner were willing to continue to rent the space to the O’Sullivans, they would never get the generous terms that Mr. Tierney had given her father. Those terms were the only reason they could afford to keep the bistro going. Without it, they would most likely have to close their doors.
“Your da would have never done this to us.”
Alison waved her hand like she was brushing away a fly. “My father was too soft. He felt sorry for your father and the lot of you. I’m a businesswoman. This isn’t personal.”
She was probably right about that. Because in order for it to be personal, Alison Tierney would have to be a person. She was a robot. An imposter. A monster with a manicure. She had a rich husband and two kids. They lived in a neighboring town, and it seemed Alison found a way to work into every conversation the fact that she didn’t live in Kilbane. They had one of those fancy limestone mansions. She probably didn’t even need their rent money, yet here she was wielding the sword.
Murder in an Irish Village Page 19