by Alber, Lisa
“Kevin’s gone,” she said. “That’s the only consequence that matters to him. He’s punished enough, besides which he won’t survive a trial without Kevin at his side. You’ll be sending him to the grave that much sooner.”
“Maybe that’s as it should be.” Danny leaned over the desk on balled fists. His knuckles turned white against the dark-grained wood. “Don’t you go thinking this is easy because it’s not.”
“There’s nothing your Irish justice system can do to him now—what would be the point?” She hesitated, hating herself, but knowing that if there was ever a time to use what she now realized was her one skill—her instincts about people, what Marcus meant when he’d pointed out her raised eyebrow—it was now. “You could care less about justice for Kate, and we both know it. But you’re not immune to a little selfishness by way of professional recognition and a sex life with your wife. Happily ever after with your promotion in place. That’s what this is all about.”
“You—bitch.” The words ground out between clenched teeth, almost against Danny’s will, it seemed to Merrit. She blinked back tears, knowing she’d get over all this with Danny but never all this with Liam if she didn’t help him the only way she could.
“How long do you have?” Merrit said to Liam, who roused himself to shrug a hope to see next summer. Then she addressed the bright spots on Danny’s cheeks because she couldn’t bear the sparks coming out of his eyes. “He’ll be dead before the system finishes its process if he’s well enough for trial in the first place. And then what will you have but your empty marriage and the wondrous satisfaction of knowing you obeyed the rules of your profession? Not to mention the end of your friendship with Kevin.”
Oddly enough, an icy calm appeared to be slow boiling over Danny’s features.
“If anyone’s counting on you to be true,” she continued, “it’s not your boss or your wife or me, but Kevin. Just Kevin. But, whatever, it’s your choice what you want to lose sleep over, not turning Liam in like a good little cop or betraying Kevin’s trust. You know he’ll never forgive you no matter what Liam’s done and what Kevin can’t face right now.”
“Enough,” Danny said.
Merrit forced herself to go on. Her fingernails bit into her palms with the effort. “But, you can still be a hero by bringing in Emma—Kevin won’t begrudge that I’m sure—and maybe bringing in Emma for Lonnie’s death will be enough to get you in good with your boss and your wife. And Kate? I’ll bet the sprained ankle and high heels will trump the bruise on her chest. Easy enough to see that she tripped—”
“Enough!”
Danny pushed himself away from the desk. He stood with relaxed shoulders but hands fisted at his sides. He perused the book shelves with dazed interest, as if seeing them for the first time. Air hissed in Merrit’s ears, the silence was so complete.
Danny ambled to the closest set of shelves and skipped his fingers over the jackets. He picked one at random. “Have you read this one yet, Liam?” The book landed on the rug with a muffled thud. “What about this one?” Another thud. “Catch up on your sickbed reading with this?” Another thud.
He began like a leaf caught in a slow spin. One book flew through the air, then the next; then the next and next; then the next next next until he accelerated into an inevitable sucking maw that only he understood. A fury of books streaked across the room in every direction, millions of words, some of which must convey emotions Danny couldn’t express himself. Merrit hunkered down with Liam to wait out Danny’s meltdown, silent except for cracking spines, ripping covers, and thuds against the walls. Several minutes later, the noise wound down to one final thud.
Merrit sat up with Liam, who appeared unfazed by the book carcasses that surrounded them. Danny stood as before with arms at his sides but now with sweaty brow and heaving chest. He searched Merrit’s face. “Congratulations, you accomplished your purpose, which makes you little better than Lonnie or Kate—or Liam for that matter. You are quite good, quite good indeed.”
Emma appeared in the doorway, blinking sleepily. “What’s this ruckus?”
***
Danny welcomed the distraction from his disgust with himself, with Merrit, with this whole sorry shit storm. The sooner he left with Emma, the better for all of them.
Emma leaned against the doorjamb with her bitten nails and rounded shoulders, eyeing the tossed books with a wary expression. Hard to imagine her with enough pent-up rage to plunge a knife into Lonnie.
“I’m sorry. About before.” She glanced at Merrit then back at the books. “You startled me is all.”
“That’s OK,” Merrit said. “I understand.”
Danny couldn’t help noticing that, like Liam, Merrit used her voice to good effect. Almost seductive the way it had lulled Danny while at the same time jabbing him to the core with its blunt words. Now she spoke to Emma with the same intimate quality.
“I can see how it must have looked at the party, and how confused you must have been. But believe me, you misinterpreted what you saw.”
Before Merrit could interfere further, Danny approached and laid a hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Emma Foley, you’re not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything that you do say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.”
Emma slipped out from under his hand. “You think I killed Lonnie?”
• 53 •
Danny’s head felt like it was about to spin off his neck and rocket through the roof, never to be seen again. Perhaps he’d be better off without it at this point.
“Right then,” he said as Emma brushed past him. “Would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on now?”
For once Merrit kept her mouth shut. She observed Emma as she sat next to Liam and shook her head vehemently against Liam’s shoulder.
“I didn’t do it.” Emma’s voice was muffled against Liam’s velvet coat. “On my honor I didn’t tell the Garda anything, not even about talking to Kevin outside the party. I haven’t said a word to anyone. It was Kevin. I’m so sorry.”
“You are mistaken,” Liam said in what amounted to an order, an order issued with a note of distress, but still an order.
Yes, she had to be mistaken. Emma wasn’t reliable. She couldn’t be if she believed she saw Kevin showing interest in Merrit. “Tell us what happened,” Danny said.
Emma sat up and haltingly related how beside herself she was the night of the party. “I’d already spoken to Kevin just as the party was starting, but our conversation left me sad. I wanted to—oh, I don’t know—but I didn’t leave. It was like I wanted to torture myself on the year anniversary, or prove something to myself. Either way, it was easy enough to watch the party through the windows for a while. Earlier I’d seen Lonnie with his date—Merrit—and Kevin looking too interested. I decided to wade into the party again to distract Kevin from Merrit. I was jealous, and I was mad and sad all over again about that piece of shit, Lonnie. It was just a bad night, OK? I should have stayed home in the first place. Should have known better.”
“What time was this?” Danny said.
“Between ten and ten thirty.”
“That early? You’re sure?”
“Yes. I went around so I could enter through the back door—less crowded that way—when who should I see but the shit himself, Lonnie, leaving Internet Café with some leggy creature, pleased with himself as usual. Gave me the sick, it did, but I wasn’t about to do anything. He said goodbye to the leggy creature and then he saw me, and I don’t think he liked me noticing them together. He dragged me into the café and closed the door behind us, probably just to tell me off, but, oh, you should have seen me then, stark raving. He’d touched me, and that was the end of my sanity for a few minutes, waving the knife Kevin gave me around like a lunatic. But Lonnie only laughed and slapped the knife away. He thought the whole thing was hysterical, me, undone like that. I felt like a bloody freak, a humiliated bloody freak.”
“What about the sweater you we
re wearing?” Merrit said.
“That? Lonnie had ripped my dress. He tossed the jumper at me like it was so much trash and so was I.”
“You left your knife in Internet Café?” Danny said.
Emma nodded. “I felt worse about that than the rest, and I wanted to talk to Kevin so badly that I ached. But by then I was in no fit state to brave the party. Your wife was kind enough to get someone to fetch Kevin for me. I told him what happened but that I’d get his knife back, that he shouldn’t worry about it. He was livid at first. We actually passed a nice few moments after I calmed him down. At least, I assumed I’d calmed him down. Then the next day news about Lonnie came out—my poor Kevin.”
She started to cry again.
“Listen to me,” Danny said.
Emma glanced at him.
“Kevin didn’t kill Lonnie. I never thought he did, and I don’t think so now.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Danny pulled his timeline out of his pocket, pondering the new fact: the knife was accessible earlier in the evening than he’d previously thought. “But now I’m back to ground zero.”
• 54 •
Kilmoon Church greeted Danny with moon-shiny stones and the quietude of the dead. He’d left Liam’s house with one backward glance at Merrit, the woman who had flayed him pink side out, and one question. The original question: who the bloody hell had offed Lonnie?
Perhaps Kilmoon safeguarded the answer as she had the answers to both Adrienne Meehan’s and Kate Meehan’s deaths. He could hope anyhow.
He tilted his head back, felt the Atlantic winds circling him like banshees, felt for Kevin out in the wind too—lost to them for now—and felt for his wife, most of all his wife, who’d avoided the freewheeling winds since wee Beth’s death.
He must accomplish one fecking thing. One—fecking—thing. He hadn’t prayed in years but gave it a try now. “Lady Kilmoon, you mighty bitch, grant me insight.”
He thought about his revised timeline and Emma’s knife forgotten in Lonnie’s shop, ripe for the sticking. Truth was, Lisfenora was full of characters who’d have liked to stick Lonnie. Even Marcus. Could he discount Marcus? Lonnie had been causing Marcus grief for months, after all, wanting to drive him out of the plaza.
Danny shook his head. No. Not Marcus. Ivan crept into his head as he had throughout the investigation. From Ivan his thoughts wandered. He stared at Kilmoon’s blackened-window eye sockets. What are you trying to tell me, bitch? You love your secrets.
Love. It always seemed to come down to love. True love, tortured love, unrequited love, match-made love, it didn’t matter. Love.
He sat up. “Thank you, bitch.”
***
At the Grand Arms Hotel, Danny descended the stairs from the lobby into the pub, and thus, into Lonnie’s wake. The low-raftered ceiling trapped conversations so that they sounded louder than they were. In the corner, a Celtic string band played ballads. Wall sconces designed to look like lanterns cast orange shadows over the guests, most of whom had been at Liam’s party.
In her usual proprietary manner, Mrs. O’Brien stood at the bottom of the steps next to a sign that stated “Private.” She shooed a couple of tourists back up the stairs.
“My condolences,” Danny said.
Mrs. O’Brien took her time sipping from a glass of white wine. “I see that Marcus is off the plaza at long last. Good of you to do that at least. Go on then.”
Danny nodded, reminding himself to smile as he slipped passed her. He edged along the walls and scanned the subdued crowd. The drinking had just begun. The jigs and the singing and the toasting would come later. He fingered the timeline in his jacket pocket. Along with the new fact about the knife’s accessibility, an old fact had bobbed up with new significance.
He must do right by Lonnie’s death, even if the truth brought down the hounds of hell on his sorry carcass. Two of those hounds stood in the corner of the room next to a memorial collection of bouquets, trinkets, and cards.
Clarkson held his whiskey glass up against Mr. O’Brien’s, and they drank. O’Brien wore a black armband and a weary expression. Danny had nothing against the man. In fact, he was a decent sort who, unfortunately, had to contend with the rest of his family on a daily basis. Deep lines etched the sides of his mouth, and they deepened when he nodded a welcome toward Danny. Clarkson merely raised his eyebrows.
The cloying scent of calla lilies and gladioli tickled his throat. He offered his condolences and greeted his superior.
“This one here believed in Kevin Donellan’s innocence all along,” Clarkson said, his voice looser than usual. He swigged back more whiskey. “By shit he was right.”
“Good to have the final answer at last,” O’Brien said.
“Sir?” Danny said.
“Old Benjy the Bagger couldn’t find conclusive signs of anything but an accidental fall for Kate Meehan. And Lonnie’s braid under her body says it all. Cheers.” Clarkson drank again.
“But what about the bruise on her chest?” Danny said.
“Inconclusive of anything. Seemed accident prone if her ankle had anything to do with it.”
Merrit with her dead-on, bloody instincts had sized up reality just as Benjy had, and it was all too convenient for everyone, even for Danny if truth be told. Unfortunately, Lonnie’s braid wouldn’t be so easy to explain away when Danny officially absolved Kate of Lonnie’s death. Hold that thought. A fresh wave of disgust washed over him. The braid would be easy to explain away. Merrit would be only too glad to confirm that Kate had snuck into the crime scene after Lonnie’s death to steal the folder and while she was at it, snip the braid and throw the money around. Eloquent and believable she would be, he was sure. Liam would be off the hook again.
Clarkson and O’Brien continued their conversation where they’d left off when Danny appeared. Golf. Danny scanned the lantern-lit crowd again, stopping at Ivan. Dour and twitchy as usual, he slouched at one of the tables near the musicians. He’d cut his hair and bought himself a decent shirt in readiness for his new life. Danny felt sorry for the poor bastard.
He could still leave. He’d done his duty to politics and social niceties. But no, he had to find a way to live with himself, even if he served up only one slice of the truth pie. He excused himself from Clarkson and O’Brien. Clarkson, in true Clarkson fashion told Danny he wasn’t all the way off the hook yet. “I’ll be watching you.”
“I expect so, sir.”
Ivan drooped when Danny sat down beside him. “You are sitting in Connie’s chair,” Ivan said.
“I thought I might be.” Danny started to pull out the timeline, but stopped himself. He didn’t have the sauce to fuck about with Ivan tonight. Best to get straight to the point. “What time were you supposed to meet Connie at Internet Café on the night of the party?”
Ivan grabbed his pint. With both hands he upended the glass and gulped it down. “You have to harass me still.”
“It’s a simple question with a simple answer.”
Ivan’s gaze darted around the room and locked onto something behind Danny. Not something, a someone named Connie O’Brien, who arrived with a plate of cold cuts. She’d pulled her hair back into a tight bun and hadn’t bothered to disguise her pasty complexion with makeup. She placed the snacks on the table, pulled up a third chair, and sat down. She immediately placed a roll of ham in her mouth and chewed.
Ivan lowered his head into his hands.
“What time were you supposed to meet Ivan during the party?” Danny said.
Connie pulled the plate closer and bit into another piece of ham. “Midnight.”
“Instead of Ivan, you found Lonnie.”
She nodded and plucked a piece of turkey off the plate. Tears gathered in her eyes, but she blinked them away. Through the turkey, she said, “It wasn’t Ivan’s fault. He couldn’t find me in the crowd, so I thought we were still on. The door was unlocked anyhow, so I went in.”
Liam was supposed to have ar
rived at midnight to pay Lonnie his latest installment. Lonnie must have been surprised to see Connie. More than surprised, he must have been appalled.
“Who was he to judge me with all the tarts he’d shagged?” she said. “But he did, couldn’t stand the thought of us, the hypocrite.” She met Danny’s gaze. “We all just want love, don’t we?”
“Yes, we do.”
Ivan moaned into his hands.
“You ever wonder why none of us O’Brien children have married?” Connie said. “Because of my dear sainted mother. She’d like to drive the halo off an angel. So now I finally find a man who can tolerate her, and what does Lonnie do? He threatens to send Ivan back to Minsk. He was my mother all over again. He was always the most like her. But he couldn’t do that to me. I deserve love as much as anyone at the matchmaking festival.”
Danny held out his hand. Connie held it as they stood up.
Ivan lifted his head. “I knew you would ruin my life.”
“I’m sorry for it,” Danny said.
“Can Ivan come as far as the Garda station?” Connie said.
He nodded, and the three of them slipped out the service entrance. Tomorrow was soon enough for the drama to begin.
The usual festival buoyancy met them when they reached the plaza. Undaunted by the crispy chill of autumn’s start, tourists and locals alike congregated around the benches while others sauntered along with smiling voices. Hopeful dancers swung around in time to hopeful music. Their scarves flapped behind them in the breeze.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Connie said. “It was too much love coming out of me all at once. It was too painful, and I couldn’t contain it. The knife was right there on Lonnie’s desk.”
In a sorry way, Danny understood. He and Ellen had once loved each other in the same all-consuming way. He pulled up his collar against an errant wind gust. The matchmaking festival banner snapped its clichéd insistence that love conquered all.
Tell that to Liam, Danny thought.