The Irish Cairn Murder

by Dicey Deere

  “Winifred, how can you be so macabre?”

  “A family trait. It came with the castle. For God’s sake, Sheila, leave that fringe alone!”

  41

  Dusk showed purple through the cottage windows. Jasper, poking up the fire, said, “I’ll clear the table, you go ahead. It’s on the same tape.” Passing behind Torrey, who was taking a last sip of tea at the kitchen table, he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “You’ll find more than one surprise.”

  Torrey got up, stretched widely, and went to her desk in the corner. She sat down and clicked on the tape. She folded her arms, leaned back, and listened again to Tom Brannigan’s voice.

  “Rafe Ricard. A financial advisor. Obviously rich and successful, from the clothes he wore: British-made suits, the Patek watch, Italian leather shoes. He’d drop in often at The Citadel. He’d talk a lot about the importance of making knowledgeable investments.

  “The success of Citadel had been written up in Business News, so I wondered if he was angling to get me as a customer. Several times he invited me out for a drink. I never went, I’m allergic to alcohol and I’d rather handle my own investments. Besides, there was something about this Raphael Ricard … something I didn’t quite trust.”

  Then one evening, Tom Brannigan’s doorbell had rung. “It was that terrible evening. I had just read the announcement of Natalie’s engagement to Marshall West.”

  Numb, wretched, he’d gotten out his scrapbook of Dakin’s growing up, his school sports prizes, his trips with his father. “His supposed father.” Beside it lay a copy of The Dakin Poems. He was crouched over the coffee table, heartsick, turning over the pages of the scrapbook.

  “It was then that the doorbell rang. I answered the door, I thought it was the superintendent come about the chimney down draft.

  “It was Rafe Ricard. He came in, laughing, hearty, in a sheepskin coat, carrying a gift-wrapped bottle of cognac. He said he was celebrating, that he’d just made a fortune in international investments. ‘We’re having a drink, then I’m taking you to dinner,’ he said, as though we were intimate friends.

  “Can you guess? I thirsted for that drink! I poured it myself, filling the glass. Rafe Ricard looked surprised. But I could tell that it pleased him to see me drink. He walked about, talking investments, saying that I was wasting my money by not getting professional financial advice. Then, crushing out a cigarette, he noticed the scrapbook on the cof fee table. ‘Who’s the kid? Your son?’ He was half joking. But I couldn’t help it. ‘Yes! My son!’ And I poured another drink. I was shaking.”

  The voice on the tape stopped. Torrey leaned forward, but the tape was still turning. Then, a cough. A sigh. Brannigan’s voice came again, thin and bleak.

  “When I awoke, it was morning. I was sprawled in a chair next to the coffee table. Within minutes I was violently sick. Did I tell you I was allergic to alcohol? I managed to shower and dress, I would have to get to the hospital. But on the way out, passing the coffee table, I saw that my scrapbook of Dakin was gone.

  “Then I realized that the copy of The Dakin Poems was also missing. So was the Irish Independent, which I’d folded back to the engagements announcements.

  “Slowly I turned to the mantel where I kept the penknife and the little unicorn bracelet. They were gone as well.

  “I began to recall going to pieces and drunkenly sobbing and babbling out to Rafe Ricard the miserable tale and my mistake in leaving Ireland. I heard myself saying, ‘The old woman lied to me! I knew that, when I learned that Natalie had named her baby Dakin.’

  “Sick as I was, and knowing the alcohol would soon make me deathly ill, I found Ricard’s number in the phone book and called him. I was out of my head. A recording machine answered, saying he was out of town, please leave a message. The message I left was that I was going to kill him. I rushed out and took a cab to his apartment, I was too sick to drive.

  “His apartment was on Redfirm Avenue, very elegant. When I asked for Mr. Ricard, the doorman told me that Mr. Ricard was out of town.

  “‘He can’t be!’ I shouted at the doorman. ‘I was with Mr. Ricard last night! Call him !’

  “‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the doorman told me. ‘Calm yourself. Mr. Ricard took a cab to the airport an hour ago. I called the cab for him myself. I heard him tell the driver, ‘Aer Lingus.’”

  Torrey clicked off the tape. “The bastard! The absolutely living-end bastard!” She looked across to Jasper, who was sitting at the kitchen table, tapping on his laptop, writing his culinary column.

  He looked up. “We could use a bit of jolly Irish conviviality to rinse out the taste of Raphael Ricard. Best accomplished at O’Malley’s over a pint. Then we’ll be dining right here at eight. Candlelight, wine, and a mystery dish. You’re my guinea pig. Finish with that cassette—if you can stomach it—and we’ll be off.” He rubbed his hands and went back to the laptop.

  Torrey clicked on the tape. “The allergy put me in the hospital. I was there for five days. My assistant took over at The Citadel. When I got home from the hospital, I packed a bag. My plan was simple, Mr.—Mr.—?”

  “Shaw. Jasper Shaw.”

  “Mr. Shaw. You already know what I came to Ireland to do.”

  42

  A seven o’clock, when Torrey and Jasper left the cottage, it was cold and clear. A silver dime of a moon shone down. They skirted the little pond, went through the break in the hedge, and onto the access road. It was only a fifteen-minute walk to the village, but the cold went clear to the bone. Torrey had pulled on her knitted navy cap, it covered her ears. She wore jeans and a heavy jacket over her flannel shirt. Jasper, in pants and his oatmeal sweater, was bare-headed on the theory that the cold weather would help him shiver off some of his fat.

  Butler Street was empty, their footsteps sounded loud on the pavement. Beyond Nolan’s Bed and Breakfast were the lighted windows of O’Malley’s Pub.

  “Jasper?” Torrey slowed and put a hand on Jasper’s arm. “I didn’t ask you, but how did Tom Brannigan know it was Ricard who struck him down?”

  “I asked Brannigan that. It’s not on the cassette because the tape ran out. Poor planning for a hot-shot investigative reporter, right? Chagrin. I hadn’t expected Brannigan to break and tell me so much.”

  “Well, how’d he know that it was Ricard?”

  “There’s only one bed and breakfast in Ballynagh. Nolan’s. Tom Brannigan guessed that the gabby Sara Hobbs naturally would’ve mentioned to Ricard that another guest from Montreal had arrived. So Ricard would’ve checked the register and—”

  “And he would’ve seen Tom Brannigan’s name.”

  “Right. So then Ricard knew it was a no-choice-but-murder game.”

  In O’Malley’s, there was firelight and loud Irish traditional music from a group of three boys led by Fred, Sean O’Malley’s second son. At the crowded bar, Jasper wedged himself far enough in to order the beers. Torrey unzipped her jacket and breathed in the smell of beer, old wood, and cigarette smoke. Someone jostled her, but she managed not to spill even a drop from the foam-topped glass that Jasper handed back to her over somebody’s head. It was all a kind of conviviality that soothed her. It tamped her down. She felt she needed the relief of it after hearing Tom Brannigan’s unnerving revelations. She was glad to be here.

  Glass in hand, she wandered to stand beside the fire; the tables were all filled, some with diners, most with folks chatting or drowsing over drinks. The television was on above the bar, but hardly heard except by those clustered there to hear it. A soccer game was in progress, bare-kneed lads in striped shirts running here and there, bruising each other inadvertantly or otherwise. An occasional cheer went up from the bar.

  In a few minutes Jasper joined her, pint in hand, a third of the glass already gone. He said, voice low, “Much after the fact, but thought I’d check. Sean O’Malley likely thinks I’m onto illegal shipments of cigarettes. He says he never heard of Sinbad cigarettes or even saw such a cigarette butt. He gave
me a funny look.”

  “Yes?” Torrey hardly heard. She was gazing in bemusement at the soccer game, one of the bare-kneed boys had made a goal. A cheer went up, and someone at the bar raised a glass high and waved it wildly about. Someone she knew.

  Twenty minutes later, on their way out past the bar, Torrey paused to greet him. “Mr. O’Boyle! Hello! I saw the shrubs from McGarrey’s all set in at Sylvester Hall along the road. Wonderful! Just what was needed, I thought. But a few, each side of the gates, are taller. Why’s that?”

  “For the look,” Sean O’Boyle said. “That’s for the look, for when I cut it. A kind of swoop up, it’ll be like a curve.” He blushed, the color coming up from his throat. He was unshaven and the neck of his sweater was greasy.

  Outside of O’Malley’s, Torrey drew deep breaths of the cold, clear air. “I’m an air junkie, hooked on the ozone of Ballynagh.”

  “Move over, there’s a car coming,” Jasper said.

  An old silver Rolls drew up beside them and slowed. “Ms. Tunet? Hello!” Natalie Cameron was at the wheel. Lights from O’Malley’s windows shone onto the street, and onto Natalie Cameron’s sweatered arm that rested on the car door. “Do you want a lift? I’m going past the cottage.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Torrey said. “You’re talking to a pair of exercise addicts.”

  “Well, then …” Natalie Cameron raised her arm and flicked her fingers good-bye. In the yellow light from O’Malley’s, something glittered on her wrist, something dangled.

  They walked on. Torrey, stunned, said, “Did you see it?” She could hardly take it in. There had been no sound, but what she saw was a thunderclap.

  “The bracelet? Yes. I saw. Unicorns.”

  “But I don’t—Where could she have gotten it from?”

  “I can guess,” Jasper said. He was taking such long strides, it was hard to keep up. “That blackmailing bastard, Ricard, must have sent it to her. He stole it from Tom Brannigan’s apartment, didn’t he? So sending it to Natalie along with her father’s penknife would be his way of telling her that he knew about Tom Brannigan. So hand over the money.”

  Torrey said, “But if Natalie’s now wearing that bracelet, that means she must have finally remembered.”

  Jasper said, “I’d say so.”

  Walking, they had reached the access road. It was only a few minutes now to the cottage. The night was clear and it was no colder than when they’d left O’Malley’s. Yet Torrey felt that even her bones had turned to ice. She said, “The vital—the important thing is, Jasper, exactly when did Natalie Cameron remember about Tom Brannigan? And that Dakin was his child.”

  “Ah,” Jasper said, approvingly. “I see what you mean.” He put an arm around Torrey’s shoulders. “Maybe Natalie remembered soon enough for her to go to meet Ricard at the cairn, bringing not the blackmail money but a rage to kill him and keep her secret.”

  Torrey felt a tremor, the dark woods along the road tipped and righted. She wouldn’t give up. Connaître le dessous des cartes. She’d discover the undersides of the cards. She’d push on. But in what direction? Think. Think!

  43

  At 2:45, the school bus from Marlow’s Girls School stopped at the corner above Coyle’s vegetable market across from Nolan’s Bed and Breakfast. Three of the teenaged girls who got off started up Butler Street together, chatting and laughing, hunching their shoulders against a brisk wind.

  “Marcy? Marcy McGann?” Torrey, waiting in the lane beside Corey’s, stepped out into their path. Marcy was easy to recognize, her bushy red hair was almost orange and it came down to the shoulders of her navy parka, the same parka she’d been wearing when she and Willie Hern had been near-witnesses to the clubbing of Tom Brannigan. She had a broad, pretty, freckled face. She said, uncertainly, “Ms. Tunet?”

  “Yes. I was waiting. Can we talk for a minute? Is that all right?”

  In Miss Amelia’s Tea Shoppe, Marcy McGann put her books on the floor, shrugged out of the parka, sat down, and in the next half hour consumed three cups of tea, one scone, one cherry muffin, and two medium-sized cinnamon-topped buns, talking all the while. It had been scary, what with the woman in the green coat screaming, and then running, and the man’s bloody head. She and Willie talked a lot about it. Willie said it was gypsies, they’d wanted to rob the Canadian, but the woman’s screaming had frightened them away. “Of course it doesn’t half compare to that murder at the cairn. Still …”

  “But Marcy, you didn’t see any gypsies?” and when Marcy shook her head, “What exactly did you see?”

  “Well, I saw you, Ms. Tunet. I saw you coming on your bike. And I saw Ms. Plant, like I said. She was across the road from the Sylvesters’ gate, so of course she could see what was happening at the gate. Enough to make anyone scream! Willie said she sounded like a fire engine. Inspector O’Hare has it all down on paper. Just the way Willie and I told him.” Marcy licked a finger and pushed it around on the plate among the crumbs and cinnamon and sugar, then sucked her finger. She gave Torrey a sidelong look, and giggled. “Except for the bird. Inspector O’Hare would’ve thought I was a rattle brain.”

  “The bird?”

  “A blue jay, I’d thought at first. Flying low. Disoriented, maybe. Anyway, likely must’ve bashed itself on a tree or something. Like they sometimes do, I guess. Its body is probably lying there decayed already. Willie agreed that that wasn’t what Inspector O’Hare was after hearing, anyway.”

  Torrey sat gazing at Marcy. “So that was all? You could see the road and the iron gate, of course, and—”

  “Oh, no,” Marcy said. “We couldn’t see the gate or anything the other side of it, if that’s what you mean. The roadside trees were in the way. So that was all.” She poked at a crumb on her plate. “It was exciting, though. Like being in a film.”

  Torrey sat gazing at Marcy. Then she smiled at her. “Another muffin?”

  For some minutes after Marcy McGann had picked up her schoolbooks and left Miss Amelia’s, Torrey sat. She was, for one thing, actually wishing that Myra Schwartz at Interpreters International would call her to say that the Hungarian assignment had been rescheduled for a later date. But why? The fragments of information from Marcy McGann by themselves meant little, had given her nothing to pursue. True, one of them had, for a moment, stopped her. It was related to something Torrey had seen or heard. When? Where? She knew it was recently. Yesterday? Today? Tantalizing not to recall. But if she inched her way back, event by event, she’d find it. It was the same as when, having misplaced her keys, she’d—

  Ah! Ah, yes! Yes! “That was it!” she said aloud. She’d been curious, had meant to follow up. But things had intervened—Jasper with Tom Brannigan’s tale. Then something nagging at her about Sean O’Boyle.

  But Marcy’s mention of the blue jay reminded her that when she’d gone to search around the Sylvester gates, she’d been interrupted by Sean O’Boyle and never had poked about. She looked at her watch. Just four o’clock. Why not now?

  “Ma’am? Another pot? That one’s gone cold.”

  “No, thanks, you can give me the bill.”

  44

  It was dim in the coach house, the afternoon was cloudy and light shone weakly through the high, dusty windows. There was a smell of mold near the grindstone.

  Sean, holding the blade of the shears against the whirring stone, realized that the smell came from a drip in the roof that had rotted one of the old bits of harness that hung on the wall.

  That harness! He laughed suddenly, remembering his first years here. Once, Natalie, nine years old, had stood on a box and taken down that same harness. She’d ineptly harnessed Ms. Sybil’s skittish mare to it and gone careening over the south meadow until she’d ended afoul a rock and knocked out a tooth. It had torn her school uniform, too. Ms. Sybil had had Natalie pay for a new uniform out of her weekly allowance until it was all paid up. It made Sean hate Ms. Sybil. No. Despise her. Sean had then secretly hired Natalie to help him plant seedlings in the greenhouse. He�
�d paid her out of his earnings to make up for her lost allowance. Natalie had loved their secret. They still had a special smile between them, though he was sure she must have long ago forgotten why.

  Sean left the coach house and brought the sharpened shears around to the greenhouse against next week’s pruning. Then he started down the avenue to have a look at the new shrubs along the gates. Partway there, he took out his pocket comb and combed his hair, sleeking it up the sides with his palm. It was for himself, not for anybody else. How he looked to himself. It was why he always walked so straight. As though he were seeing himself, his reflection. As in a mirror. Or a pool.

  He was more than halfway to the gates when he glimpsed something moving along the road down past the shrubs. Not a rabbit or a dog, a somebody.

  Weeks ago, he would have just kept on. But now there was violence and death. There’d already been too much that threatened those at Sylvester Hall.

  So he stepped from the crunchy gravel to the grass and approached the road more quietly. Now, partly screened by the new shrubbery and the iron gates, he could see.

  It was someone, their back to him, bent over, and picking up something from among the brambles. Someone in old jeans and a tan parka. She was whistling under her breath, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Ms. Torrey Tunet.

  Just then, Ms. Tunet suddenly broke off her whistling. “Well, now! Do tell!” She was holding something, but because she was half turned away, he couldn’t see what. She pulled a man-sized handkerchief from the pocket of her parka, said, “Sorry, Jasper,” and wrapped whatever it was in the handkerchief and dropped it into the pocket of her parka.

  Sean watched as she got on her bicycle. She was whistling again as she bicycled back along the road to Ballynagh.