by Lisa Alber
Danny stood at the end of the bed, breathing in the scent of antiseptic hospital soap. “It’s sad for the kids not having a mother around. You know how that is.”
“I do, though I’m a daddy’s girl. Isn’t your daughter a daddy’s girl?”
Danny had never thought of Mandy that way. “Maybe, I don’t know, but kids—daughters—need their moms.”
Zoe didn’t respond.
“They miss their mom as I’m sure you missed yours.”
“I’d rather not talk about my mom,” she said. “You can’t heal the dead.”
“But you tried, didn’t you?” Nathan had told Danny that Zoe attempted to heal Susannah after her fall down the stairs.
Zoe ignored that comment. “My dad is still alive, though.” She placed her hand near Ellen’s. “I need him, you see. I’ve always needed him, and it wasn’t fair that they took him away from me. I don’t want that to happen again.” She brushed her fingers down Ellen’s arm. “Can you help me?”
“How do you mean?”
“You can talk to people—that horrible woman in the psych ward, your Garda contacts. Help my dad. Last time they kept him for two years—two years!”
“He needs professional help, and besides, you overestimate my influence.”
She stood. “I’m sad for him. And for myself, if I’m honest. Can we go now, please?”
“What about Ellen?” he said.
“Maybe when I’m in a better mood.”
Danny let out a slow breath. She was a sham, an utter sham who messed with people’s heads for jollies. He lingered a moment while Zoe waited in the corridor. He picked up Ellen’s antique silver hairbrush and ran its soft bristles through her hair. “It would be nice to believe in miracles, wouldn’t it?”
seventy-seven
Ballyhinch House sat on ten acres of forested lands. Ivy crawled over its stone façade and moonlight glinted off symmetrical rows of windows that marched across the upper and lower floors. Nothing stirred but a couple of bats flitting after bugs.
“This doesn’t look like a hotel or B and B to me,” O’Neil grumbled.
His stormy expression probably matched Danny’s own. Superintendent Clarkson had returned from his Easter holiday one day early, and, as might have been expected, insisted on a blow-by-blow account of the investigation and expenses related to hauling in DS Sheehy for a week. A wasted day, and none of them got their Monday bank holiday. After visiting the hospital with Zoe, Danny had hoped to spend the afternoon at Lahinch Beach with the children.
Good riddance to that idea. Many hours later they were still on the job as they approached a portico and a cherry red door. Two crumbling stone steps led to the front door, and withered ivy branches sagged away from the walls. Danny felt around under the ivy for the doorbell and pushed it. They waited but the house remained in darkness. He pushed again and this time held the button. After another minute, a light appeared through the fantail window and brightened as the occupant made his way toward the front door, turning on lights as he went. The porch light popped on and the door opened to reveal Sid blinking at them sleepily.
“’Allo,” he said and opened the door wider to admit them. “You found me again, but bloody odd time to be showing up.”
They stepped into a two-story foyer with a checkerboard floor and sweeping staircase. Sid tightened his bathrobe as he shuffled them toward a room that turned out to be a family room filled with comfortable old couches and chairs. The house may have been period but the furnishings said late twentieth century. Sid grabbed a blanket off the back of one of the couches and curled under it.
“Drafty old place.” Sid yawned. “Sit, sit. Now that you’re here you might as well make yourselves comfortable. Once again, I applaud your Garda efficiency. How did you find me?”
“Your friend Zoe.”
“Her?” A quizzical frown squinched up his face. “How odd. I must have mentioned Ballyhinch House in passing and assumed it would float out of her spacious head straightaway.”
“She’s quite intelligent,” Danny said.
“I mistook her for a bobblehead when I first met her,” Sid said. “My mistake.” He laughed. “Oh, ay, big mistake, indeed!”
Danny perched on a side chair while O’Neil wandered around the room examining dusty Waterford figurines and a CD collection. “Whose house is this?” Danny said.
“The family house. Standing empty at the moment.” Sid burrowed deeper into the couch, pulling the blanket up to his chin. “A shame, really. But you’re not here to talk about that.”
The family house. “You’re from Clare?”
“A native-born son.”
“You never mentioned that,” O’Neil said as he picked up a framed photo that sat on a sideboard.
“I haven’t lived here in years. It’s been a strange homecoming. Can we quicken the pace, officers? I’d like to return to bed.”
Sid Gibson would like to return to bed, would he? Benign Sid Gibson, who had starred in Annie Belden’s nightmares.
Danny resettled a throw pillow to support his lower back. Only then did he say, “Did Annie Belden know you grew up here?”
“Oh yes. Charmingly perverse of her to move here. I took it as a compliment.”
Danny imagined Annie updating her address in her mother’s ancient address book, there for anyone to see, and perhaps Sid was one of the anyones she assumed—or hoped?—might see it.
Sid watched Danny, his smile engaged, observant. “She wanted me to find her.”
Danny switched gears. He worked to keep distaste from coating his words. “What did you say to persuade Nathan to attack Zoe at the party?”
“He made that fateful decision all on his own. I simply told him I could help him. I reminded him of what would help him.”
“And what would that be?”
“Lancing the boil. How was I supposed to know how he would interpret that?”
Sid gamed Nathan into attacking Zoe. The question was why.
“There’s also Annie’s journal. It’s missing, and we hear that you promised to give it to Nathan.”
“He’ll appreciate it.”
“You care that much about Nathan.” O’Neil moved on to perusing the spines on a collection of leatherbound books. “To give him a gift.”
“It gets tiresome not being given the benefit of some feeling,” Sid said. “The answer is yes, I feel for the sorry bastard.”
Feel what, Danny wondered.
“Believe it or not,” Sid continued, “in the end, my intentions toward Nathan are good. And as for the journal, I don’t have it.”
“You’ve just admitted that you took the journal from Annie’s house, which places you inside her house sometime around her death.”
“Am I admitting that? Ay, I suppose that would be the truth of it. I took it because I wanted to hear her voice one last time, even if only in my head.”
O’Neil blew dust off a cracked book spine. “You’re not worried about how it looks, you pinching the journal—and her mobile, too, while you were at it?”
“Why worry? Her journal and phone had to come up at some point. No use lying to you fine Garda officers. Nathan knows I have them. Or had them.”
“Had?” Danny said.
“Annie’s mobile is long gone, but Nathan surprised me by calling me on my mobile, not Annie’s, which I quite liked. As for the journal, Nathan is obsessed with it. Annie had become his lifeline. Not surprising that her death sent him into free fall.” Sid’s head sank deeper into the pillow. “Poor bastard. The least I could do was give him the journal as a memento. I’ve had my closure, and now the journal’s with Nathan. I’m sure he’ll find comfort in good Annie’s words. She wrote about him quite a bit.”
“You dropped the journal off at the hospital? When did you manage that?”
“Today. Unfortunately, they refused to let me see him. The woman in charge of the ward should find the journal soon.”
Danny thought back to the teeming psych ward
with the voluntary patients roaming around and nurses bustling back and forth. Easy enough for Sid to slip into Brenda’s office.
“I suppose now you’re going to ask me about the bouquet,” Sid said.
“I suppose so,” Danny said. “What were the meanings of the flowers again?”
“Disappointment, rejection, and beware,” O’Neil said without looking up from the book he held.
Sid rolled his eyes up to the ceiling in thought. “Hm, hm, hm—ay, that says it, but you’re missing the point.”
“Angry, were you?” Danny said.
“You could say so.” Sid stretched out on the couch, pushing his socked feet out from under the blanket. “My impulses aren’t always sound. That must be obvious. My mental illness troubles me at times, but I’m much better than I was. My goal is continual improvement.”
His mental illness. He mentioned it matter-of-factly, like sciatica or a toothache. Playing it like a hand of cards, slapping it down. See? I’m transparent. Here’s my hand.
“I suppose the bouquet was your way of having fun,” Danny said.
“I’m used to being circumspect, that’s all,” Sid said. “I got in the habit of it inside Dundrum. When you have people analyzing every word that comes out of your mouth, it changes the way you communicate. Sometimes I had fun with Annie and the others at their expense.” He paused to shift the pillow under his head. “I suppose I still find it fun. You make a good point there.”
Danny stood and whipped the blanket off Sid. He pulled Sid up by the elbow. “Come along, time for clothes.”
“What’s this?” Sid said.
“We’re taking you into custody. We’ll start with obstruction and tampering, and go on from there. There’s more to the story.”
Sid smiled his forgettable smile that Danny would remember forever. “Pretty quickly here you’ll discover you need me. Remember that.”
“Holy shite.” O’Neil held out the book. “Boss, you have to see this.”
seventy-eight
In the psychiatric ward, Merrit sat beside Zoe as they waited for news about Nathan. Nothing but faint shadows under Zoe’s eyes indicated that anything was amiss. She managed to sparkle inside a psych ward.
Merrit had been drinking coffee when Zoe called, standing by a window as usual and watching the marquee company dismantle the Chill Zone. She’d expected them the day before but had forgotten about the bank holiday. The sight of the men trampling daffodils already battered by the hailstorm depressed her. Everything about the festival had left her unsettled. Even, or maybe especially, Simon’s kiss.
She’d jumped at the chance to accompany Zoe to the hospital and satisfy herself that the doctors had stabilized Nathan. After an hour of waiting, Zoe catapulted to her feet when a woman appeared and beckoned them. She introduced herself as Brenda while frowning down at a clipboard she carried.
“We’re still adjusting your father’s medications,” Brenda said to Zoe. “We need to find the correct dose. The antipsychotics can cause drowsiness, tremors, and other side effects, but he’s doing well, considering. We’re monitoring his delusions. They’re quite”—she paused—“entrenched.”
She walked away without another word. Zoe ran to catch up with her while Merrit followed. A vague fishy smell wafted out of the commissary as they headed toward a set of doors at the end of the corridor.
“Can I see him now?” Zoe said.
“I’m sorry,” Brenda said.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “It’s visiting hours.”
“Nathan has indicated that he doesn’t want to see you at the moment.”
Zoe stepped back as if slapped. She aimed a beseeching gaze at Merrit. “He must be upset with me, but I haven’t done anything to him, I swear. I’m trying so hard to be a good daughter. Please, could you talk to him?”
“Can I visit Nathan?” Merrit said to Brenda. “I’m his friend. He may have mentioned me. Merrit Chase.”
Brenda perused Merrit over the rims of her eyeglasses. “He has. You’ve been good with him. Patient, he said. I’ll allow you in. A visitor would be good for him.”
Zoe grabbed Merrit’s arms, imploring her with wide, teary eyes. “It’s been two days. I can’t bear this. I’ll go starkers. Ask him to let me visit.”
Brenda pressed buttons on an entry pad beside a set of double doors. “This is the locked ward.”
The common room Merrit entered stank of despair and sweat. In one corner several patients gazed at a television airing a sitcom that Merrit recognized from the States. Several more patients lounged on couches that faced the courtyard, and more played card games at four-top card tables or roamed up and down corridors that led to their rooms. Brenda pointed to a man huddled at the far side of the room. Nathan’s skin stretched tight around his skull and his mouth hung open. He looked like an old man.
Brenda led the way. A woman hissed at them. Brenda patted the woman’s head as she passed, and the woman relaxed. “Nathan does best when he can work with his hands. We gave him Play-Doh.”
A spritely mosaic of children’s modeling dough festooned Nathan’s table. His nimble fingers had fashioned a turtle and a snail and were currently molding a yellow bird. He squinted at his bird with heavy eyelids, and his voice burbled from an underwater place. “I’m a little tired right now.”
“Your friend Merrit is here,” Brenda said.
Nathan’s eyelids twitched. “I need to finish painting Fox Cottage.”
“There’s no hurry,” Merrit said. “I’m not sure why I started the project anyhow.”
Merrit hung back, but at Brenda’s invitation to make herself comfortable, she sat down next to Nathan. She picked up the red Play-Doh and began shaping a clumsy horse. Nathan still hadn’t looked up. She needed to break through his drug haze. She thought about what Liam would do, imagined him during the Matchmaker’s Festival when he did that thing he did—she didn’t know how to define it—that allowed people to open up to him. She’d been stumbling up against this aspect of Liam’s prowess as matchmaker since she’d arrived. Trying to emulate him. Merrit didn’t share Liam’s talent for opening people up.
She must have sighed or grunted because Nathan finally caught her eye. Merrit’s horse resembled a giraffe. She held it up. “Nice llama,” he said.
“I was thinking about what Liam would do in this situation. How he would try to reach you. He’s good at that.”
With slow, trembling fingers Nathan pinched the dough into the shape of a bird wing. He pressed a thumbnail into the clay to create the illusion of a feather.
She tried again. “You’re so talented. Do you ever sculpt?”
Nathan cradled the bird for a moment. He closed his hands around it and then opened them up again before continuing with the feathers. “I did. Before. But I stopped. After Susannah died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Nathan turned the bird around to work on the other wing. “Liam’s a showman, but that’s not you.”
Merrit set her llama on the table.
“You don’t need a matchmaker mask,” he continued. “You’re quieter, so be quiet about it. Like you’re being now.”
Merrit had to ponder that one. It hadn’t occurred to her that she could be herself. She was so worried about her performance that she’d forgotten that her job was to listen and counsel. That was it. The locals preferred fanfare. Fine. Let them produce and manage the festival. Perhaps if she thought about it like that, she wouldn’t be saddled with the expectations and frustration caused by the expectations. The lesson also applied to her life in general here in Ireland. Always performing as the resident outsider, even to the point of driving all the way to Elder Joe’s house to pick up eggs.
“You might be on to something.” She rolled blue polka dots and stuck them to her red llama. “But, Nathan, about Zoe—”
Nathan shook his head and pushed his chair away from the table. With twitching eyelids, he held the yellow bird toward Merrit. “This is for Zoe.”
&
nbsp; Merrit reached out to scoop the bird out of his hands. Nathan closed his hands over hers, over the bird, and pressed the heels of his hands into hers. His jaw tightened with the effort. Merrit yanked against Nathan’s grip. “That hurts,” she said, and it did, but she kept her voice low and calm. “Please stop.”
Yellow dough oozed from between their fingers, the bird squished to nothing. “Now it will never come back again,” Nathan said.
Brenda reappeared with an orderly, who wrapped his arms around Nathan until he was docile again, staring into the middle distance.
“Did he hurt you?” Brenda said.
“I’m fine.” Merrit rubbed her hands against each other. Yellow dough dropped to the floor in soft chunks.
“Tell Zoe I can’t be fixed,” Nathan said. “To not even try. It’s too late. The harm’s done.”
“I don’t believe it’s too late.”
Nathan shook his head so hard his body swayed. Brenda and the orderly steadied him. “Tell her to go away.”
The tics and tremors below the surface of Nathan erupted. Brenda and the orderly pressed themselves up against his body to help contain him. Merrit stood frozen as Nathan ruptured all over again. His eyes bugged out of his head and spittle formed in the corners of his mouth. Brenda and the orderly half carried Nathan toward a wall. Their bodies pinned him against the wall in a soft barricade that restricted his movements and protected him from himself. They never raised their voices, but even so, Nathan’s agitation incited a locked-ward orchestra of grunts and squeals.
“We’ll need to increase his medication,” Brenda said to the orderly.
In a moment of insight, Merrit knew what Nathan needed. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. “Let me try something. Please.”
“You need to leave,” Brenda said.
A nurse stepped up and handed Brenda a syringe and at the same time placed a hand on Merrit’s shoulder to ease her away from Nathan, murmuring, “Come with me.”
Merrit held her ground.
Brenda raised the syringe.
“Please,” Merrit said, “let me try something with him.”