by Alber, Lisa
Now safe in her leased Nissan, Merrit held three deep breaths in succession. It would be OK. She didn’t know all the facts yet. No need to panic.
Beside her, Marcus fondled an unopened gin bottle and gurgled in triumph. “I didn’t need a sip either. That was a jolly time.”
“I’m glad.” Merrit forced a smile and gave his stubbly cheek a light pinch. “You were great. Shall we go?”
Merrit dug around in her pockets for her car keys. She almost missed Marcus’s widening stare. “Jaysus H. Christ, it’s the woman herself.”
She caught a ghostly flicker in her side-view mirror. Adrenaline shot through her with such force that her fingertips tingled. Instinctively, she made a move for her inhaler but stopped herself from pumping up with a preventive dose. The last thing she needed was Kate witnessing her weakness. Fighting the urge to squeal away on burning tire rubber, Merrit told Marcus to stay put and exited the car. She dug her shaking hands into her jacket pockets. Her heart felt like it was about to burst out of her chest, but she gathered a long, deep breath of chill Atlantic air into her chest and held her ground.
A few feet away, Kate bent to rub her ankle above a high-heeled ankle boot. She looked as sinuous as a cat burglar in slim black pants and snug top. However, the effect was marred by a slash of red scarf across her neck. “Hope I didn’t sprain it. Treacherous walking out here.”
She didn’t sound outraged. Merrit relaxed a little, but just a little. She didn’t trust her voice yet, so she remained silent.
“Came over the hill, and there’s your white car glowing in the dark. I recognized it from around the village and figured you were up to no good, so I parked and walked on down in hopes of catching you in the act.” A wry smile flickered over her features. “I don’t usually talk in clichés, so there you go. Congratulate yourself on surprising me. This is unusual, you know. Find anything?”
Kate also didn’t sound worried, which worried Merrit. Maybe Ivan had it right to be fearful of her—especially if she did kill Lonnie.
Play it cool, she told herself. “Just a novel about the exorcising of personal demons.”
Kate leaned against the car’s hood, favoring her right leg. “Ah, another cliché, one we all share. Did you have a happy childhood?”
She had asked the question as if she already knew the answer. Merrit hesitated. “Up to a point.”
“And how old were you when your childhood changed?”
“Thirteen. My mom died.”
“Me, ten. From the good life to disaster when I was too young to control anything. That’s not good for anyone’s development.”
Kate gathered herself and stood. Just like that, the coolness Merrit had noticed at the tea house returned like a hard coating. She watched Kate hobble her way back up the hill toward her car. Anxiety sweat soaked Merrit’s T-shirt, but she waited. Five minutes later, Kate’s high beams flashed as she passed them and parked. She entered her cottage with a jaunty backwards wave. Light illuminated the front window. Kate appeared. She watched them for a moment, shrugged, and snapped the curtains shut. Her shadow drifted away from the front window.
“By Jesus, that woman is scary,” Marcus said when Merrit slid into the car.
“She’s something all right.”
Merrit fingered the printouts she’d removed from the folder before returning it to the garbage can. On the top page, four grainy people gazed up at her from a blurred image. There was dashing Liam, complete with the cape described by her mom. To his right, a woman with a remarkable resemblance to Kate held an infant. Her grin looked forced as she held the infant’s arm in a wave toward the camera. On this woman’s other side stood Andrew, the man her mom married.
Merrit swallowed hard and picked up the printout to view him clearly. He didn’t look harsh so much as serious with his wide tie and slicked-back hair. He peered past Kate’s mom and Liam toward Julia, who leaned in from the left to tickle the infant. Andrew focused his gaze on Julia, yet there they stood on opposite ends of the lineup. The caption read: In the plaza Liam the Matchmaker socializes with his fans, (left to right) journalist Julia Chase (USA), Liam, Belfast native Adrienne Meehan with daughter Kate, and entrepreneur Andrew McCallum (USA).
Merrit dropped the printouts and started up the car. “Do you think Danny is still awake?”
“Danny-boy? Ah no, can’t be going there.”
“You can stay in the car while I talk to him. I have to give him something else to think about besides me as his favorite suspect. Do you think he’ll forgive the little fact of our breakin?”
Marcus twisted hard to open the gin bottle. The paper seal crinkled and then his swallowing sounds filled the car. Merrit pulled the bottle away from his mouth. “I promised myself I wouldn’t lecture, but I’ve grown too fond of you. You are a dear man, and the alcohol only distances you further from your family.”
“Ellen will never be letting me near Mandy and Petey again anyhow.”
She held his hand, felt it shake. “One thing I know, you’ll never get the chance if you’re still drinking.”
With a gentle yank, Marcus took back his gin and settled it between his legs. “There goes your eyebrow, higher than ever. Now leave off, will you?”
She kissed his cheek. “Ellen is lucky to have you for a father.”
Marcus lowered his head to hide his smile.
***
After his long day dealing with Ivan and Lonnie’s mashed computer, not to mention Clarkson, Danny had longed to read the children traditional tales about Fionn and the salmon of knowledge, Deirdre of the sorrows, and King Lir’s swan. Reading aloud to Mandy and Petey never failed to ease the tension from his shoulders. But, he’d missed his chance and now sat in the dark looking out their bedroom window. With the end of his work day had come the end of his investigation into Lonnie’s death. Officially, at least. O’Neil had agreed to keep him in the loop on Clarkson’s progress, not that that would amount to a piss in the wind.
Mandy mumbled and bike-pedaled the covers off her bed. Danny tucked her back in, and then adjusted the stuffed pink flamingo that threatened to smother Petey. By rights they should have converted Beth’s nursery into a bedroom by now, but Ellen wanted none of that. They were two years past, and he rarely entered the baby’s room anymore. More like a mausoleum now, a heavy presence within their midst that Ellen entered most evenings for prayer.
Unsettled, Danny rose and eased the bedroom door closed behind him. He hesitated on his way to the sofa for yet another back-aching attempt at sleep. On Sunday after working on Lonnie’s case all day, he’d returned home to find a note taped to the unused blackberry tart dough. He’d be on the sofa until further notice.
Light from the big bedroom lit a line under the door. Hoping for a reprieve, he knocked and entered. Ellen sat on the rocking chair staring into space with a brush in hand. She’d pulled on her hair hard enough to straighten the waves.
“I have a new idea about Lonnie’s death,” he said. “He had issues with others besides Kevin.”
Ellen parted her hair into three sections. Danny trembled to take on the task of braiding that she’d allowed him in the good days. He thought about the way Ellen’s hair used to shine, the way she used to laugh with her head thrown back when Marcus played horse with the children.
“Should you be talking to me about the case?” she said.
He opened his mouth, about to confess that he wasn’t on the case anymore anyhow, but Ellen interrupted him. “Best to stop then. Can’t take chances on the promotion. All the hours you’ve been putting in have to lead somewhere. Indeed, anywhere but here.”
He retreated, knowing it was futile to point out that the here Ellen detested was the here she revisited when she insisted on sitting vigil for Beth in the church and when she prayed in the nursery. The here that was her discontent, her misery.
He pressed thumb pads against his eyelids and held his breath to the count of ten. On the last exhale, he opened Beth’s door, stepped inside, and cl
osed it again. “Here you are, my sweet, but here we must part.”
There wasn’t much to the room. A toddler bed, dresser-changing table, toy chest, and low shelves packed with hand-me-down plush animals and child-safe toys. The furniture had to go. Mandy required a grown-up girl’s room. He must force his family forward if only to lessen his sense of inadequacy, just as he must continue his investigation if only to produce enough conflicting evidence to cast Kevin’s supposed guilt into doubt.
Headlights flashed across the animal alphabet poster. Danny trotted to the living room expecting Kevin looking to unload his shite. Clarkson had let him go earlier that day, but Danny hadn’t had a chance to talk to him. Danny didn’t recognize the white four-door that rolled to a stop. Sometimes tourists lost themselves on the back roads, but closer inspection had him muttering, “holy hell.” He hurried outside and knocked on Marcus’s window. Marcus obliged him by rolling it down.
“Have you gone stone mentaller?” Danny said.
“Listen to Merrit. We’re after doing your job for you, that we are.”
Merrit arrived at his side. She wore her hair in a loose ponytail. Tendrils danced around her face. Danny followed her gaze to Marcus—who was now waving like a maniac—and from there to the nursery window. Porch light outlined the recesses under Ellen’s eyes, cheekbones, and jaw, and reflected glints off her eyes as she stared at Marcus. She retreated back into the shadows.
Marcus attempted to open the car door, but Danny leaned against it and directed his words to Merrit. “This better be worth the lashing I’m in for.”
She held out two pieces of paper. “Read these. Ivan told me that Lonnie was blackmailing Kate also”—Danny grunted, annoyance increasing by the second—“so we went looking for Lonnie’s missing folder at Kate’s place. Seemed logical.”
“Breaking and entering? Brilliant move.” An unreasonable impulse to shake Merrit came and went. He grabbed the two sheets of paper she still held toward him. “What missing folder?”
“This proves that Kate has an agenda—”
“I realize that Kate is here for the same reason you are. The agenda being Liam. I’m not about to get roped into your sibling rivalry. You and Kate enter that ring on your own.”
Merrit’s determined expression withered. She rubbed her chest and dug into her jeans pocket. Danny waited her out as she pumped saline mist into her lungs once, twice, then three times. He understood that she needed a second or two to regain her calm with this fake medicine of hers. However, as he watched, she began to gasp.
Marcus jabbed Danny’s thigh with his gin bottle, and Danny stepped aside. His father-in-law tumbled out of the car in a waft of gin fumes. “I’ve got you, Beth.” At the same time, lamplight from within the house fanned toward them when Ellen opened the front door. “Who is this woman?” she said.
Merrit’s chest jerked as she fought for breath. Her complexion drained of its healthy glow, and she stumbled forward onto all fours. Danny shoved the clippings into his pocket and knelt beside Merrit. “Ellen, grab her keys and get the car going.” He tossed her his mobile. “And call a neighbor to come watch the children.”
Marcus prodded Merrit, whose head hung between her arms. Her spine showed through thin cotton as she fought for breath, back arching with the effort. Marcus’s plaintive cries for Beth tore at Danny as he pushed Marcus back onto the passenger seat. Within seconds, Merrit’s limp form hung in his arms. She was so slight, hardly bigger than a teenager. He lowered himself into the back seat with Merrit still in his arms.
“Go. Ellen, drive.”
Ellen sat stiff, staring back at him through the rearview mirror. “But I can’t, not with him here.”
“Don’t do this, Ellen. Not now. Just drive.”
Ellen shook her head and dashed the back of her hand across her eyes.
Danny struggled to keep his voice low. “Get your head on straight. This isn’t about you.”
On his lap, Merrit’s respiratory efforts slackened. She quivered and gulped in shallow breaths, which scared Danny more than her gasps. She stared up at him with no expression except a mute fear of death—which was expression enough for anyone.
“Drive, woman!”
As Danny knew she would, Ellen focused her indignation into managing the steering wheel along the narrow lane, almost hitting their neighbor, who waved and called out that the children would be fine. Danny grabbed his mobile off Ellen’s lap and called the local emergency number. He yelled at a triage nurse to send an ambulance out to them. “We’re on our way to Ennis. Have the ambulance meet us on the road. We’ll high-beam him to stop. I don’t care if this is irregular. We’re thirty miles away from the hospital, for Christ’s sake. That’s too long to wait.”
By the time they screeched to a halt in front of the emergency entrance at Mid-Western Regional Hospital Ennis, the emergency services technicians had stabilized Merrit. One of the technicians snapped at Danny to keep out of the way and waved two hospital orderlies with a gurney toward the ambulance. Quickly, they lifted Merrit onto the gurney and ran her inside the hospital, leaving Danny alone in the parking lot with his fractured family.
Danny hovered halfway between the emergency entrance and Merrit’s Nissan, out of which Ellen had shot the moment she’d turned off the engine. The supernatural glow from the outdoor floodlights veered her pale complexion into the green zone. Ellen with her tousled braid stood barefoot in a summer nightgown. Dirt on her feet. Dainty crucifix flipped over her shoulder. A woman Danny didn’t know anymore.
As Danny turned to face Ellen straight on, Marcus heaved himself out of the car. In the silence after the hospital doors swallowed Merrit, Marcus’s voice erupted as a wail. “I turned my back for a second, only a second, and she was on the ground.”
A sound echoed against the hospital walls as ethereal and earthy as an animal’s death cries. Ellen keened with two years’ worth of grief. Marcus backed into the car door and stretched for the bottle. Danny held his ground, for once unwilling to mollify Ellen, protect Marcus. Oh please God oh please God, he whispered to himself.
Ellen’s despair softened into heaves not unlike Merrit’s. Then she was around the car and face-to-face with her father. She thrust out her chin. Marcus gazed at her almost in wonder. This was the closest they’d stood since Ellen tossed him out of the house.
“Don’t you drink,” she said with depleted voice. “Don’t you soften your misery. I’ve carried it for the both of us so don’t—you—dare—drink—from—that—bottle.”
Marcus raised his hands in mute supplication. His lips quivered. He raised his hands a little more and gin sloshed onto Ellen’s feet. She thrust herself at the offending bottle and smashed it against the car roof.
“You think I feel sorry for you? I don’t. You’ve had it easy. You haven’t had to live under Beth’s roof, you haven’t had to face Danny every day knowing that”—she choked to a stop and lowered her voice—“knowing that he ought to hate me.”
She stepped away from Marcus, swaying. On a long inhale she straightened herself, her nightgown, and her necklace. “Take me home,” she said to Danny. “He can remain here to wait for his friend.”
During the drive home, Ellen leaned against the window and stared at herself in the side-view mirror. Danny hoped to Christ she saw herself clearly. He braked in front of the house. Their neighbor waved the OK as he closed their front door and went home. Ellen blinked and roused herself. “What does that woman want with him anyhow?”
“Say his name.”
“With Marcus, my father, satisfied?”
“Not enough, I’m not.”
Ellen’s nightgown billowed around her knees as she strode toward the house. Danny considered dashing after her to apologize, but for what? He couldn’t keep begging forgiveness for everything—his inability to keep up with the housework plus obtain a promotion; his close relationship with Kevin and Liam; even his faith in Liam’s matchmaking skills despite their marital problems. “This mess is
Liam’s fault,” Ellen had ranted on many occasions. “Why did he think we were a good match? He’s a fraud.”
But Liam was no more magician than Danny himself. Liam couldn’t have predicted Beth’s death, or Marcus’s disintegration, or Ellen’s inability to forgive, or Danny’s imploding life.
He turned Merrit’s car around for the return trip to the hospital.
Julia Chase’s notebook
We most often meet at Our Lady of the Kilmoon at night, which is fine by me because the insomnia is back. It never seems to stay away for long …
I often wonder how to write up the private Liam, the mighty lion undone by a silver moon. Last night, light softened the edges of all it touched, and the air scented us with dew-laden grass, livestock, sea salt, and the overheated-engine smell of peat smoke. Kilmoon Church stood in genteel isolation, open air to the night as if shrugging off its Christian ties and embracing a more benevolent lunar goddess. The church seemed to watch us, indulging us our frail humanity and our unseemly trespass. We strolled around the site, taking in the uneven stones and skinny windows, the crumbling gravestones and tall Celtic crosses. We then stepped over a crumbling wall and piles of sheep dung as we approached the Celtic standing stone, which to me represented Liam and his nouveau-old ways.
Liam spoke little. He was preoccupied with Andrew, silly man, not understanding that Andrew is only a subject for the article—the skeptic—and nothing but a familiarity from my childhood. My world was filled with old-fashioned gents like him. My father, uncles, all of them expressed their affection through bank accounts and a kind of chauvinistic chivalry. In fact, Andrew reminds me of the stifling life I left behind. Contrary though it seems given Liam’s career, Liam is the New World to Andrew’s Old.
• 26 •
Kevin parked alongside the plaza, hardly aware of the drive from home much less the half bottle of Jameson’s he’d just sucked down. Across the street and half a block down stood the village church and between him and the church, two pubs. Tourists and locals alike drifted between them. Lonnie’s death hadn’t lessened the festivities in the plaza. In fact, Michael, the bakery owner, had set up his sound system, and dozens of couples swung around in time to tinny-sounding Celtic jigs.