by Alber, Lisa
Detective Sergeant Danny Ahern, yes. With Kevin. Some visitors. They were about as compassionate as Kate. They must have practiced their good-cop-bad-cop routine before arriving, though she’d have imagined Danny as the hard-ass; Kevin, the patient listener. But then, maybe not. Kevin now detested her on principle it seemed. Come to that, was there anyone in the village who liked her besides Marcus?
What a lonely, useless thought, here in this sterile, foreign hospital with a nurse chattering on about how wonderful it was to have visitors.
The nurse emptied Merrit’s pee bag and announced that she was ready for the female medical ward on the first floor. One orderly wheeled in a chair while the other lifted her out of the bed. Merrit didn’t notice her surroundings again until a new, skinny nurse tucked her into a new bed. “There now. Better?”
High ceilings, Pepto Bismol colored walls, and floral curtains around the beds. “Better,” Merrit agreed.
The nurse with the pink lipstick peeked around the curtain. She handed Merrit a message slip. “Almost forgot that a phone call came in for you. I couldn’t make out everything but hopefully enough.”
Merrit read the note and struggled to sit up, only to fall back again, still too weak to be much use yet.
• 33 •
Many miles north of the hospital, Merrit stood before Callahan House after a long and expensive taxi ride from the hospital. North Atlantic tides breathed in and out along the rocky shore a few blocks away, reminding Merrit of the hiss of Andrew’s oxygen tubes during his last days. She shook her head against the memory and peered up at Callahan House. The grand old home from a bygone British era resembled the B&Bs tucked along the Northern California coast, except sturdier with deep gables and short chimney stacks. Irish winters kept adornment to a minimum, but even so, the deep blue trim and removable planter boxes comforted Merrit.
She had understood Marcus’s garbled telephone message well enough, but she’d had to ask a nurse what “Callahan House” meant. It had taken her all day to gather up the strength to walk out of the hospital. Now, her limbs required a few seconds to catch up with the impulses her brain sent them as she teetered toward the entrance and then through it. Entrance chimes prompted the arrival of a woman with protruding collarbones and a name tag that said Sandy.
Merrit hoped her voice didn’t betray her shakiness. Her lungs and heart felt like sore muscles. “My father, Marcus Tully, left me a message this morning. He said he needed to talk.”
Sandy jutted out a chin as sharp as her collarbones in response to Merrit’s voice. “From the States then.”
“We were estranged until recently. I grew up with my mother in California.”
“Ah,” Sandy said as if familial estrangements were her stock in trade. She considered Merrit. “His son-in-law filled out the paperwork though. You would be related how?”
“The son-in-law is married to the daughter from the second wife. I’m from the first. Like I said, estranged.”
Sandy continued to scrutinize Merrit, who held her gaze easily enough. She was too weary to do anything else.
“I’ll make an exception this time.”
After thoroughly searching Merrit’s purse and pockets for contraband, Sandy led the way up the main stairs and down a hallway with thick carpet and amateur paintings. “From previous participants of our program. We have an art therapy class that is a wonder.” She stopped before a door and explained that the facility didn’t allow visitors or phone calls within the first two weeks. However, since Marcus had arrived under more than the usual duress and Merrit had traveled so far, well, she saw no harm in a visit. “Frankly, our doctor couldn’t make sense of him. Something about a birthday party, so we let him have the one phone call.”
A pager attached to Sandy’s belt buzzed. She glanced down at it and frowned. “I must go. A crisis with one of the other patients. Have Marcus ring for me when you’re ready to leave.”
The door opened on a room designed to soothe raw nerves. Walls painted the color of sea foam surrounded shaggy hand-woven area rugs, Irish landscapes, and quilted pillows. Marcus stood before the window. He didn’t turn around until Sandy left, and then it was with a shy downcast expression. His hands shook.
Merrit had a feeling that he was unsure how to relate to her as a sober man, so she decided to treat him as usual. “Nice bathrobe.”
Relief cleared the wrinkles from his forehead, but he didn’t smile. “I feel like a queen, and I’m not talking Nefertiti either.”
He was far more clean and presentable than Merrit but also diminished somehow, as if having choice taken from him—even one so self-destructive as drinking—had left him with nothing but his clammy, greenish skin.
Marcus scanned her up and down with a dubious crinkle between his eyes. “A return call would have been fine. I was only that half-cracked to be here, and I wanted to check on you besides. Had to throw a fit to get the phone call.”
“The staff wouldn’t let my call through for some reason, so here I am instead. I snuck out of the hospital and cabbed it. Danny’s still got my car as far as I know.”
“Ay, he’ll keep it safe, that bugger.” His voice rose. “Danny didn’t sign my life over. He doesn’t have the right. I could leave anytime.”
Merrit approached the bed and ventured a hand across the quilted duvet. Exhaustion dulled her senses. She longed to sleep her tired body and mind into a fit state again, if she could recall what that fit state might be. She’d like to return to the horses of her youth. Perhaps she would again someday.
She sat on the bed as Marcus said, “I could leave right now with you.”
“You could leave at the same time as I, but you’d be leaving on your own.”
A depressive scowl settled over Marcus’s face. “That’s just words. It amounts to the same bloody thing.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’ll visit you whether you’re on a bench or in this clinic, but I’m not taking you anywhere else with me. First my flat, then the hotel, then Kate’s cottage, then your daughter’s house. I haven’t been good for you.”
“Oh, but you have at that.”
“If so, then it follows that Callahan House is good for you since my interference landed you here.”
He pointed at her face, more specifically at her raised eyebrow. “You’re a fair prize, aren’t you? You could turn the conversation around on a politician.”
Merrit leaned back on the pillows, feeling her body sigh. She forced her mind to stay alert. “So, you called?”
Marcus chewed his lower lip. “I’m hard by thinking clearly but seems like that night isn’t such a blur now. I can’t help the thoughts—have to ponder something besides how much I hurt. The medicine they gave me in the hospital helped settle me, that it did, and reminded me that I hadn’t felt easy since the party. I was off me head, but at least Liam was a true friend.” Marcus rubbed his hand in sure mimic of the matchmaker. Merrit recognized the kneading movement. “He brought me dinner and a double hot toddy the likes of which I’d not tasted in years. Ah Christ, for another one now.”
Marcus pulled up a rocking chair and sat down. “That toddy was like to put me out cold. Later I woke to the shivers and cake.”
“Cake?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying. Two plates of food. The second being a fat piece of cake. I says to myself, Jesus, where are my shoes and then noticed the cake.” He paused. “Isn’t that an odd thought? Where are my shoes.”
Merrit bunched up a pillow behind her head. “Your shoes disappeared?”
“I wake up shivering without my shoes but with a piece of cake, then I wake up again with my shoes but no piece of cake. Could that be right?”
“Cake brought before or after you lost your shoes though? Your mystery friend could be a witness and not know it.”
“Bother this, I’m just a drunk. Can’t believe what I remember, can’t remember what I believe.”
Merrit leaned over the edge of the bed to observe his feet encased in sl
ippers that matched the bathrobe. “Fancy.”
Marcus blushed. “Chills you know, coming off the gin. I’ve been sicking up chunks of my stomach too—can’t eat a thing. Thank Christ for the drugs. Old pisser like me can’t go cold turkey. I could keel over, so they say, but I’m not about to believe that. They just want us docile until we’re in our right minds again.” He pressed trembling fingers against his temples. “Nothing makes the headache go away though. What were we on about?”
“You have a big set of feet. Who’d want to steal your clown shoes anyhow?”
“Who indeed? Ugly as sin, my shoes.” He bent into a coughing spasm then sagged back. “Sorry, not fit for the hosting, but you look the worse off so you sleep a spell.”
“That woman Sandy wants you to buzz her so she can see me out.”
“Don’t you fret. She’s always busy. I’ll toddle down and tell her I walked you out. I’ll pretend to be exploring and showing an interest. She’ll like that.”
“I told her I was your long-estranged daughter.”
He patted her arm, but his gaze didn’t meet hers. “That’ll be easy enough to fake. You sleep.”
Merrit couldn’t resist the invitation even as she felt a warning tug from something Marcus had said.
Julia Chase’s notebook
I can’t help myself—I’m worried. It’s been a week and Liam hasn’t matched me to anyone for purposes of my article. My editor is losing faith, and I’ve dried up. Even out here at Liam’s favorite spot overlooking Kilmoon Church with its charming churchyard and community of Celtic crosses, I find no inspiration. Yesterday I took a ferry to Inishmore where I encountered endless rock walls and locals who spoke only Irish. The barren limestone terrain could have been the inside of my head, and the salt air biting my cheeks didn’t revive senses lost these past weeks.
Is this what love does? Debilitate? I simply cannot concentrate or sleep. I want myself back, but I fear I’m lost, which frightens me because I might be the one in for the disappointment. Adrienne hovers, and Liam tenses, and Andrew smiles. And me? What do I do? Try to write an article that means nothing to me anymore.
• 34 •
A click woke Merrit out of a sound sleep. She opened her eyes to view a dimly lit coastal print on the wall and a fringed lamp on the nightstand. Her head felt fuzzy, as if she’d woken from a coma instead of a nap.
“Marcus, how long have I—?” She rolled onto her back to find Danny standing over her with a bleary but penetrating expression. “Oh, come on,” she sighed.
“Need your inhaler?” he said.
“Funny, ha-ha. Give it time. I’m not awake yet.”
“Come with me. Let’s let Marcus sleep.”
He pointed to the ground beside the bed, where Marcus curled on the floor, hidden from hallway view by the bed. He still looked clammy but at least he slept.
In the hallway, a night attendant with long sideburns and a patch of hair under his lower lip hopped to with an unabashed grin. “I see how it is then. An unauthorized visitor. Now to call Mrs. Callahan—she owns the place—so that we can perform the lock-down and room check.”
Danny landed an arm around the man and lowered his voice. “Calm down, Leonard. This one’s American. Pretty but clueless. You understand. Give us five minutes.”
A few more minutes of hushed conversation, and Leonard agreed to stand watch while Danny retreated with Merrit into the closest empty room, which happened to be the women’s restroom.
Merrit gargled water and splashed her face, trying not to let on how vulnerable she felt in Danny’s presence. “What time is it anyhow? And how did you find me?”
“Four in the a.m. Last night I went to the hospital to check on you only you’d scarpered. Thank you for that, by the way. You caused quite the furor. We’ve been looking for you ever since. One of my men finally got wind of the incoherent phone call you received at the hospital. Could only have been from Marcus, especially because Liam was about his matchmaking duties at the time of the call, and Kevin was in custody.”
“As in arrested?”
“Which is why I’m here. He broke into your flat. You’ll be glad to know that the eejit was drunk, no more than that.”
Merrit leaned against the counter, renewed weariness overriding the effect of the cold water that still dripped down her face. Kevin, then the Garda, had rifled through her flat. Hopefully they hadn’t found her mom’s notes. She inhaled against tension around her lungs and tried tapping her fingers against the counter to drown out everything except the self-protective drill sergeant who ordered her to stay calm.
“We need a statement about your belongings so I’ll need to bring you in to the station,” Danny said.
He leaned against the bathroom door with crossed ankles, making no move to escort her to his car. Merrit didn’t like the looks of the leather portfolio he clutched beneath his arm.
“I’m curious about why you paid Lonnie at all—except that you have something to hide, don’t you?” he said.
“My arrest in California, yes, but you know that already, so why ask?” She mustered a smile. Damn Ivan once again for his blabbermouth. “The charges were dropped for lack of evidence, by the way. The DA’s principle witness—a hospice nurse—was snitching meds from her patients and selling them on the side.”
“You still wouldn’t want your arrest to get around so you paid Lonnie those first €500 allotments—”
“In hopes that he would leave me alone, not delve further, mind his own freaking beans, say what you will. I’m all about my privacy, and I didn’t want Liam to overhear secondhand gossip before I’d had a chance to meet him.”
“And what kind of privacy did the jump to €1,000 buy?”
She tapped her fingers on the counter. “Liam’s. I caved, this time to keep his business off the streets instead of mine. Lonnie said he had something, to quote him, ‘wicked juicy’ on Liam.”
“He didn’t tell you what?”
“No, but I decided to believe him anyhow because something happened with my mom back—” Danny appeared to be reading her mind. He nodded in agreement. Dusky as the bathroom was, Merrit felt the lights as pinpricks of pain. She tested her breathing. Doing fine, just fine. “Lonnie said he’d reveal all at some point, contingent on more money.”
“Ah, so it wasn’t so much that you were coerced out of €1,000 as that you’d entered into negotiation with him. Interesting.”
“Think what you like. Besides, why else am I here but to know Liam—however that may be?”
“Fair enough. Now, about Kate.”
The pinpricks of pain poked a little harder. “Kate?”
“In the hospital, you were about to reveal something about her, but you fell asleep.”
Merrit caught her tapping fingers with the other hand. “You’re trying to rattle me, but it’s not working.”
His smile said that he observed otherwise. “Kate?”
“I don’t remember what I was going to say about her. I was drugged up.”
A quick knock and Leonard poked his head into the bathroom. “I’ll need to be calling in Mrs. Callahan and seeing to the proper procedure.”
Relieved, Merrit stood. “Yes, we’re done. And I’m so sorry—”
“Do what you need to do,” Danny said to Leonard. “We’ll finish our conversation in the meanwhile. Won’t be too much longer.”
Leonard shrugged. “Old Callahan screwed up good, not checking that Marcus’s guest had really left. Can’t wait to see her prune face when she arrives.”
His chuckles retreated down the hall with him.
• 35 •
Danny gazed around the bathroom that was grander than his at home. In fact, it was roomy enough to allow for two dainty chairs, a pedestal table, and an antique armoire. He opened the armoire and tossed Merrit a fluffy towel for her face. Marcus had best pilfer a dozen of them, the rates the place charged.
He beckoned Merrit to one of the chairs and sat down opposite her, unsettl
ed by the film-noir feeling within the underlit bathroom. All he needed was a fedora and cigarette; all Merrit needed was skimpy lingerie. But this was the best opportunity he’d get to pry information out of her without Clarkson getting wind of it. She didn’t need to know that he was off the case.
Voices and footsteps paused outside Marcus’s room. Leonard’s procedure had begun.
Danny set his leather portfolio on the table, noting the way Merrit’s gaze darted toward it and then away. “What about Lonnie?” he said.
“Lonnie?”
“You’ve forgotten this mess began with him?”
Merrit shook her head and then nodded. Knowledge flickered behind her eyes. She lifted her hands out of her lap, tapped her fingers against the tabletop. Watching her from under his eyebrows, Danny sensed that she’d veered off in a new direction, away from her previous focus on establishing her innocence. It was as if she didn’t care what he thought about her guilt anymore. He could almost see the wheels grinding inside her skull as her eyes bounced along with each tapping finger.
“What about Marcus had you rushing out of the hospital?” he said.
“I’m his surrogate daughter until your wife comes around.”
And for the time being, Marcus was her surrogate father. That much was obvious, but bloody well beside the point—as were most of her responses.
In a sudden movement, Danny pressed his palms onto her fingers. He squeezed her hands and pulled her toward him. Film noir indeed, he thought, as she locked her elbows against his drag. “Marcus called you because he remembered something out of the gin fuzz. He’s not talking to me at the moment, so what did he say?”
The bathroom door banged open to reveal a skinny woman who could only be Leonard’s “prune-faced” boss, Mrs. Callahan herself. She glared at Merrit.
“Detective Sergeant,” the woman said to Danny without taking her eyes off Merrit. “May I have a word?”
“In a moment.”
The door closed with another bang. He turned back to Merrit, who jerked away from him and rose to stand before the bathroom mirror. She frowned at her reflection. “I need a toothbrush.”