Kilmoon: A County Clare Mystery

by Alber, Lisa

He propelled Connie and Ivan away from the plaza. Tomorrow Liam would once again work wonders for everyone but himself, as he had since the seventies. Maybe that was as it should be.

  And tomorrow Danny would wake up in his lost friend’s bachelor’s bed. The decision to take over Kevin’s cottage didn’t distress him as much as he’d expected. And maybe that was as it should be too.

  • 55 •

  Merrit as the next matchmaker. Un-bloody-believable. Or maybe not.

  Kevin sat, staring at the letter, awestruck by Liam’s machinations, his audacity and will, his perverted sense of justice, not to mention his altruistic loyalty to the lovelorn and his desire for his own brand of good. Kevin continued reading.

  … This evening I told you a story of hatred, but I stopped before I got to the worst of the cruel gestures that I mentioned. This hatred of mine, it didn’t ease upon Andrew’s and Julia’s departures. If anything, it evolved into a festering pain that led me to grab at the only connection available. I hired a security agency that specialized in everyday spying. I learned of Julia’s pregnancy, and I did the math.

  Soon after your birth I wrote Andrew a letter, and in this letter I fairly crowed my triumph over him. Over the years, I kept my pain alive by sending him the odd note. I’m sure Julia told Andrew thousands of times that your paternity didn’t matter, but I kept his hatred alive with my letters. This is the sorrow of your life, because—who knows?—Andrew might have made a good father. Of the people whose deaths I caused, I bear not the guilt for them that I do for you, because I damaged you the most—and in yet one more way that I now describe to my everlasting shame.

  Even thirteen years after your birth, I couldn’t resist poking at Andrew again. Near your birthday I sent him another letter, which he must have shared with Julia. In this letter, I made it clear that I was keeping a long-distance eye on you, and that I would like to take on some of my paternal obligations, starting with phone calls. This was a threat, and he knew it. Through you, I hoped to reconnect to Julia.

  I can only imagine Julia’s turmoil when she found out. She worried for you mightily, and I’m dead certain that her distraction and exhaustion—that insomnia of hers, you know—led her over the traffic line. I only realized my dire mistake weeks later. She wrote pleading me to leave her family alone, to forget about you, to grant her a full night’s rest at last. The letter was postmarked the day of her death.

  I leave these awful truths to a posthumous letter because I want you around while I die. I enjoy the bits of Julia you don’t know you possess. The way you pick at your cuticles when you’re hard at thought and the way you stand with your feet splayed. Simple pleasures, in the end, after a complicated life. I’m a selfish man. Believe me, I know it.

  Truly, there are two loves in my life, your mother and Kevin, and you as the next matchmaker are my testament to that love. For Julia, who’d have spun a pirouette in pride, and for Kevin, who deserves at long last an unencumbered path in which to find his peace. For this reason, though I regret my actions, at the same time, I do not.

  In a way Andrew did my job for me, sending you here. With my cancer diagnosis, I had to start thinking about my legacy anyhow. Little did Andrew know that this talent of mine runs in the family (it’s the family curse, in fact), which means that I have the last say over him anyhow. The notion pleases me mightily.

  Remember, you’re charmed for it.

  Sincerely,

  Liam Donellan

  After reading the letter through once and only once, Kevin folded it in precise thirds and slipped it back into the envelope. Little did Merrit know that her new father was as manipulative as her old father. Liam needed an heir sooner than he’d anticipated, and now he had one. If Merrit wanted a loving father figure, she’d best stick with Marcus.

  With infinite care he stored the letter in the glove compartment along with the knife that had never gone missing, both of which he’d found in Liam’s desk drawer. Only then, when Liam’s letter was out sight, did Kevin relax. He needn’t feel beholden after all. Liam had other agendas besides protecting the bereft boy—who was not so bereft, who felt fine driving through his homeland, thank you very much.

  Kevin leaned his heated face out the window to sniff at wind-torn ocean spray and wince against its sea-salt sting against his cheeks. Route 341 curved out of sight around bends both in front of him and behind, leaving him with the perception he was the only soul on the planet.

  But he wasn’t. He picked up his mobile and pressed a few buttons to go straight to voicemail. “I made a casserole before I left. It’s in the freezer. Old troll.”

  He hung up. Restarted the engine. Rolled up the window. Nothing to it really, this life as a nomad. Just a series of little actions, one at a time. So next stop, food. The Atlantic’s low rumble retreated into the direction from which he’d traveled thus far. He’d let the miles that ticked by on the odometer be his roots. He’d let the knife, the one that had tested his faith, be his reminder.

  ***

  An hour after Danny left with Emma following on his heels, Liam passed the last book to Merrit, and she positioned it in line with the others. Neither had uttered so much as a sigh since Danny’s departure. There was nothing to say. They’d have to pick up the pieces as they did the books: one at time, on their own.

  Before leaving, Danny had turned for a last look at Merrit. “I’ll take over Kevin’s cottage instead of staying here. I imagine you’ll be visiting Liam too often for my liking.”

  The message beneath his parting words pricked Merrit because he was right. She had no morals to stand on with him. She’d gotten what she wanted, after all—Liam for the time he had left. She didn’t know if she could bear to watch Liam’s skin turn into a gossamer skein through which his blood vessels would show, or watch while pound-by-pound his bones floated to the surface and illused muscles puddled onto the mattress. But she would. This would be her price for getting what she wanted.

  “You may have broken my mom’s heart,” she said, “but I’m the one who caused her heart to stop altogether.”

  She wasn’t sure why she’d said this, but she decided that Liam deserved to know that he wasn’t the only guilty one when it came to her mom.

  “The day she died I saw her slip a letter into an envelope that was addressed to a man. You, though I promptly forgot your name after my mom died. She seemed secretive about it, and me being the spoiled brat that I was, I goaded her about sleeping around with her horse trainer, with the next-door neighbor, with everyone. I called her the worst mom in the world. She stood there with tears streaming down her cheeks, taking it and taking it, as if she deserved to be beaten down with my words. Then she said she must hurry to the post office before it closed. I don’t know what happened on the road, but I do know that she wouldn’t have been driving half-blinded by tears if I had kept my mouth shut.” Merrit paused. “The worst of it was that I only blew up at her because she’d refused to let me ride her horse that day. And now, given everything I’ve learned, I’m certain I didn’t just hurt her, I devastated her.”

  When she raised her head from sightlessly scanning book titles, she found Liam watching her. “I insist we ban Mrs. O’Brien from signing on for any of my caretaking shifts,” he said.

  She smiled at his lame attempt to distract her. “I can help you through the rest of the festival. Carry your matchmaking book for you, take your notes. If you’d like.”

  Some of the opaque dullness lifted from his gaze. “Interesting idea.”

  “And I can move into the guest room. If you’d like.”

  “That might be helpful too.” Liam rested a hand on each thigh and squeezed them as he straightened his spine. His gaze lingered on the mobile that sat too mute on the desk. He picked it up, pressed a button, listened. “Hovering magpie,” he whispered, then let the phone drop to the floor. “I’m cold, Miss Merrit. Shall we rally the fire?”

  She settled him before a small mountain of peat and a steady flame. Liam shifted hi
s feet onto an ottoman, wiggled his toes toward the fireplace, and invited the prowling cat onto his lap. Merrit grabbed her shoulder bag from the kitchen. Despite purging it that afternoon, it sat bloated with fresh excess. She pulled out one skein of yarn after another for Liam’s approval.

  “That,” he said, “the purple. And that, the cream.”

  Next, she pulled out her tape measure. “Longer than Marcus’s afghan, correct?”

  Liam nodded. “Ah, yes, I do like my feet covered.”

  After a while, Liam dozed and Merrit hoped the rhythmic click of her needles was his lullaby. She’d care for Liam, yes, and if his pain became intolerable and if he so desired, she’d see to the morphine once again—but this time in honor of her mom who’d have hated to see Liam subjected to unnatural corrosion.

  As she knitted, she pictured the photograph of Kilmoon Church that had hung on the living room wall in California. The crumbling walls, the Celtic crosses, the soupy mist. Her mom’s hell that Andrew had insisted she live down every day. Little did Merrit and Kevin—and Kate for that matter—know that they’d grown up under Kilmoon’s corrosive shadow.

  She glanced up to see Liam awake again. “What’s that you’re thinking about?” he said.

  Liam didn’t need to know that her mom had let Andrew get away with his cruelty because she’d never stopped loving Liam. This was the penance she’d thought she’d deserved. Kilmoon had haunted her from afar, no doubt infiltrating her dreams, causing her insomnia, ultimately leading her into oncoming traffic. At long last, Merrit understood the enigma that was her mom, and she was grateful for that.

  “I’m wondering how long it will take me to finish this afghan, that’s all,” Merrit said.

  He grunted his skepticism.

  She smiled. “Hey, I can be enigmatic too.”

  “Like father, like daughter?”

  “Or like mother.”

  “Just so.” Liam settled back into his chair. “I’m glad you’re here after all that.”

  He slipped into sleep again. After a while, Merrit set her knitting needles aside and reached inside her bag for the black box with squeaky hinges. She popped the box open and brushed her fingers across the earrings nestled within. Firelight glowed deep within the moonstones. Merrit slipped them on.

  “I’m glad I’m here too,” she said.

  Acknowledgments

  I began writing Kilmoon in 2002. It’s been a long journey. Apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone who helped me along the way. All errors in the manuscript are my own.

  Elizabeth George, thank you for your supportive comments during my first-ever writers workshop. Your words gave me hope and helped me persevere. Especially, thank you for the Elizabeth George Foundation and for Two of the Deadliest. What an honor.

  Another Elizabeth: Elizabeth Udall, patron of the arts, for the Walden Fellowship. Peace be with you, wherever you are.

  In Ireland, Detective Sergeant David Sheady and Sergeant-in-Charge Brian Howard answered my questions about the Garda Síochána. Raising a Guinness to you! Hope I kept it real through the many subsequent revisions. So much still to learn. Teresa Donnellan, thank you for hosting me and for answering my random questions about life in Ireland.

  Thanks to Chris Ginocchio (medical), Dallas Finn Calvert (equestrian), and Laura S. Trice (Russian) for your specialized knowledge.

  So many supportive and wonderful writers provided feedback and moral support and good advice and writing tips (in no particular order): Michael Bigham, Jeannie Burt, Evan Lewis, Kassandra Kelly, Becky Kjelstrom, Jackie Blain, Gigi Pandian, Tracy Burkholder, Wendy Gordon, Charlotte Rains Dixon, Deborah Guyol, April Henry, Bill Cameron, and Ann Littlewood.

  Drink-and-thinkers, you fab mystery writers—I’d never forget you: Angela Sanders, Cindy Brown, Holly Franko (editor extraordinaire!). And special thanks to another fab writer I’d never forget: Stacy Allen for your sweet, inspirational words over the years—you’re a generous soul.

  My Eugene shadow-spinning peeps (even though some of you don’t live there): Christina Lay, Pamela Jean Herber, Cynthia Coate Ray, Cheryl Owen-Wilson, and dear Elizabeth Engstrom, for so much.

  Also, I’d like to thank two literary agents for valuable manuscript feedback: Elizabeth Kracht and Jill Marsal.

  Arlene Alber, Kara Alber, Nicole Sidlauskas—my family. Can you believe it? Thanks for not pooh-poohing this crazy endeavor that took hold of me.

  About the Author

  Photo: Jim Titus

  Lisa Alber received an Elizabeth George Foundation writing grant based on Kilmoon in addition to a Walden Fellowship. Her short story “Paddy O’Grady’s Thigh” appeared in Two of the Deadliest (HarperCollins), an anthology edited by Elizabeth George. In addition, Lisa was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for the story “Eileen and the Rock.” A Californian with a penchant for travel, animal advocacy, and photography, Lisa worked in international finance and book publishing before exchanging the corporate ladder for storytelling. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest. Kilmoon is her first novel in the County Clare Mystery series.

  Learn more about Lisa at www.lisaalber.com.

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Alber. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Muskrat Press, LLC

  Portland, Oregon

  info@muskratpress.com or publicity@muskratpress.com

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Alber, Lisa.

  Kilmoon : a County Clare mystery / Lisa Alber.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-0-9895446-0-3 (pbk.)

  ISBN: 978-0-9895446-1-0 (e-book)

  1. Family secrets—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Ireland—Fiction. 3. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 4. Mystery fiction. I. Title.

  PS3601.L3342 K55 2013

  813—dc23

  2013910968

  Book design: Jennifer Omner

  First Edition