by Dicey Deere
45
Tuesday morning, Torrey’s alarm clock went off at six o’clock. It was a brisk, sunny, blue-sky day. Torrey turned off the alarm and immediately got up.
For the next three hours, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, she did various things: She rearranged all of Jasper’s herbs on the kitchen shelf. She jumped rope for half an hour. She read the second Simenon book in Hungarian, not taking in who had shot the lawyer’s wife or why the wife had had an affair with the druggist in the first place. She swallowed a cup of coffee and a heavily buttered piece of brown soda bread. She glanced at the clock on the dresser at least twenty times.
At nine o’clock she pulled her heavy V-necked raspberry sweater on over her shirt. Outside, she got on the Peugeot.
At Nolan’s Bed and Breakfast, by nine-thirty, breakfast was over. The tourists in rooms 3 and 4 had already departed with their luggage. So only three rooms were now occupied; their occupants had gone off fishing, antiquing, driving about, or browsing the one souvenir shop in the village.
Brian Hobbs, Sara’s husband, was making up the rooms. Norah, the help, was down with a cold, and Sara was off at O’Curry’s Meats for the sale on pork shoulders. Brian had the vacuum out and the room doors open, he had just finished room 5 when he saw Ms. Tunet coming down the hall. Behind the scenes, so to speak. Ms. Tunet had a bit of dash to her, the way she held her head; and those gray eyes, this morning, had a touch of violet beneath them, as though she hadn’t slept well.
Clearly Ms. Tunet was wanting to speak to him. Noisy vacuum. He switched it off so they could talk. Turned out she’d come to ask him about some kind of cigarettes she wanted to buy. Sinbads. She knew he smoked, she wondered if he knew where she could get some Sinbads.
“Sinbads?” He shook his head. “Never heard of them.”
Miss Tunet said, “Well, thanks, anyway.” She looked curiously about. “That Canadian who was murdered. Was that his room?” She was looking toward room 5. Brian shook his head. “No, the Canadian fellow was in room Two. We had to keep it locked for a week—tourists curious, and all.”
“And Ms. Plant’s? Curious about hers too? Room three, isn’t it?”
Brian shook his head. “No, she’s room five.”
“Well … I guess no luck about the Sinbads,” Ms. Tunet said. “Ah, well.” She wiggled her fingers at him and he turned on the vacuum again and went into room 2. He thought she’d left, so it startled him when ten minutes later he came out of room 2 and there she was, just outside in the hall. It made him jump. She smiled at him and said something about having lost a button off her flannel shirt and thought maybe in the hall. But the way her gaze slid away, he remembered suddenly what the village had found out last year about Ms. Torrey Tunet having been a thief. But of course she’d been a kid, in her teens. He’d done a few things himself he didn’t like to remember and which would’ve shocked Sara if she’d known. The past was past. Anyway, about doing the cleaning, he ought to lock each door after he finished the room, not just go from room to room to save time to have a cigarette out in the garden. Sinbad cigarettes? He shook his head.
It was ten o’clock. Lucinda knocked on the cottage door. No answer. Sun filtered through the trees and shone down. Birds chirped in the hedge. Otherwise, silence. Lucinda hesitated, then knocked again. Still nothing, nobody. What to do? Maybe Ms. Tunet would come back soon. She’d wait. She needed to see Ms. Tunet. She sighed and resettled her brimmed cap.
Waiting, she squatted beside the rather mucky pond. She was poking at a little frog in the sun on a flat rock at the edge of the pond when minutes later she heard someone whistling, and Ms. Tunet came through the hedge, pushing her bicycle. Ms. Tunet looked … brilliant, somehow. Tired, but brilliant, her cheeks stained with extra color, her gray eyes like they’d just seen a bunch of fireworks explode right in front of her face. She blinked when she saw Lucinda. “Lucinda! Hello! I’ve been wanting visitors. Come in.”
Lucinda hesitated. For a moment she felt uncertain, maybe it was a mistake to come, maybe she’d make some excuse, back away and leave. But then, of course, she couldn’t. Because she had to try. She pulled at the bill of her cap and waited while Ms. Tunet unlocked the door.
Inside, there was barely a gleam from a peat fire in the kitchen fireplace, but it was warm enough. Ms. Tunet said, “Take off your things, Lucinda. My heavens! It’s so cold outside, I got chilled. I could use a cup of hot cocoa. How about you?” She yawned but she still had that brilliant look.
“I suppose,” Lucinda said. “Thank you.” She unzipped her parka and edged onto one of the kitchen chairs. One thing, she wasn’t going to cry.
Making the cocoa, Ms. Tunet kept looking at the directions on the can and spilling things, and talking at her over her shoulder. Lucinda could tell that Ms. Tunet was trying to chat about subjects interesting to children: the new litter of kittens at Castle Moore, this Saturday’s jumble sale at Dunfy’s farm with toys advertised; Little Women coming up again on Sunday on television. Lucinda took a deep, quivering breath, she didn’t care about any of that right now, not even Jo in Little Women. She sat pushing the salt and pepper shakers back and forth.
Ms. Tunet poured the cocoa into the mugs, set the mugs on the table, and said with relief, “There!” as though she’d just climbed a mountain. She sat down and looked across the table at Lucinda. Her voice was gentle. “What, Lucinda? What is it?”
“I’m so worried, Ms. Tunet.”
“Worried, Lucinda?” Ms. Tunet stirred her cocoa.
“About my mother.” Lucinda forced herself not to cry. “I’m not against anybody, and I don’t want to just be spreading ugly stuff. You know?”
“Well, actually, I’m not sure what you mean, Lucinda.” Ms. Tunet blew on her cocoa. “Ugly stuff?”
Lucinda put her hands around her mug to warm them. “You were so brave when you grabbed that telephone from Dakin! So I thought maybe you’d know what I should do. That’s what I came for. Though the cocoa is very good.”
“Thank you, Lucinda.”
“So maybe if I told you, it would be different. Because official people think children make up things to be important, and it gets innocent people into trouble. I mean official people like Inspector O’Hare might think so, if I told him. Though of course it’s sometimes the case. The actual case.”
“Ummmm. I guess that’s so, Lucinda.”
“Inspector O’Hare is a very nice man, actually. But you know how the Gardai are. Sometimes. In their zeal. I’m for the Gardai, naturally. Where would a civilized society be without the Gardai. But I’m worried sick. And telling you about … about it is different from spreading it.”
“Spreading what, Lucinda?” Ms. Tunet said. “What you’re here about?”
“Well …” Lucinda took a deep, quavering breath.
Five minutes later, her tale ended, Lucinda sat with her hands clasped to her chest. “Will it help my mother?”
Ms. Tunet was staring at her. “It might. It just might.” Her voice was a little breathless. “I’m glad you came to me. And for now, best not to go to Inspector O’Hare.”
“All right.”
Lucinda drew an enormous breath of relief. She had a feeling she could trust Ms. Tunet to do something. What, she didn’t know. She got up and put on her parka and gave her billed cap a yank. Ms. Tunet accompanied her outside. But before they went out, Ms. Tunet took a Polaroid camera from the dresser drawer, saying she wanted to take some outdoor pictures of the cottage. She was just in time, too, because when they came out the sky was already getting cloudy. Dark clouds were massing over the mountains west of Ballynagh; the sun still shone but it was going to storm, one of those rainstorms that turned the village streets into rivers.
Lucinda skirted the little pond and went through the break in the hedge.
46
It was a deluge. Black clouds, then the downpour, the wind slicing through it, all so sudden that the lunchtime crowd at Finney’s was pretty well trapped inside.
Winifred Moore, sitting across from Sheila at a window-side table, pulled the ecru curtain aside, looked out, and at once ordered a second dessert. The ice cream with banana and nuts. “No sense in going out in that,” she said to Sheila.
It was, peculiarly, as though a kind of homey, family peace descended on the restaurant. Terence, who worked at Lowry’s Hardware and was always in a hurry, sat back and relaxed. One of the O’Dowd brothers told about a cow who walked backward when it stormed. He swore it was true. The butcher, Dennis O’Curry, told his favorite old chestnut. It was how, twenty years ago, he’d triumphed over the late Sybil Sylvester. It was about the time she’d paid his bill for six lamb chops and included a nasty note: “Mr. O’Curry! I can get lamb chops in Doyle’s for a pound less. I only ordered them from you this past Thursday because Doyle’s is closed on Thursdays.” Dennis, after mulling this over, meanwhile downing two whiskeys at O’Malley’s, had sent the bill back to Sybil Sylvester, having scrawled on it, “When I’m closed I charge a pound less than Doyle’s.” Everybody laughed at that one.
Winifred, starting on her second dessert, noticed that Sergeant Jimmy Bryson, at the next table with Ms. Plant, wasn’t having his usual favorite: corned beef with mustard and pickles. Instead, he was eating Finney’s all-vegetable jumble, as was Ms. Plant. He was messing it around a lot; but Ms. Plant seemed to be enjoying hers. Winifred leaned over to Sheila. “Who’s running whose young life?”
Sheila followed her glance; then gave her a reproving look. “Is it any of your business who eats what?” Sheila was still smarting over l’affaire champignon, as Winifred called it. Sheila now even refused to eat mushroom anything, even mushroom soup that came in a can.
A blast of wind shook the plate glass window and the slanting rain struck it with a sound like peas rattling into a pan. At that instant the door opened and Torrey Tunet came in. Old leather air pilot’s hat tight to her head, her face wet. She wore a red slicker buckled high around her neck. And as Winifred said later to Sheila, “Up to something, as usual!” “Of course!” Sheila had answered, “But then, who would’ve guessed?” and she gave a little shudder.
“Torrey!” Winifred waved her dessert spoon at Torrey. “Over here! Join us.”
Torrey gave a nod and flicked her fingers in response. She unbuckled the red slicker, and hung it on one of the row of hooks that was already overloaded. She came over, smiling, pulling off the pilot’s cap. “Hello! The whole village must be here.” She nodded to Ms. Plant and Sergeant Bryson at the next table. Bryson was fiddling with a green bean, turning it this way and that on his fork.
Torrey pulled back one of the two empty chairs at Winifred’s and Sheila’s table and sat down. “I saw you through the window, I only came in to say hello and to show you something. Look at these!” She pulled an envelope from her shoulder bag and fanned out a half dozen photographs. “Shots of the groundsman’s cottage. I took them early this morning. Sunny and springlike, can you believe it? My instant camera. I’m not an expert photographer like you are. But I think they’re pretty good for an amateur. What do you think?”
Winifred looked down at the photograph Torrey handed her. Awful. Worse than amateurish. Couldn’t Torrey see that? She looked at Torrey. What could she say? Very nice? Or something more honest, like, Throw away the camera?
But Torrey was leaning over to Jimmy Bryson at the next table. “You’ve always liked the cottage, Sergeant Bryson. Have a look,” and she dropped a couple of photos on the table and smiled at Brenda Plant. “You, too, Ms. Plant. You like old things, antiques and such. The cottage is certainly that. Look at this one, it’s my best,” and she handed Ms. Plant a photograph.
Winifred spooning up the last bit of banana, glanced at Torrey. Something. A tenseness. Torrey’s gray eyes, were a fraction wider than usual; a pulse was beating on the side of her neck just above her cowl-necked sweater. Something up. All was not as it seemed. Puzzling. Well, never mind. “The rain’s stopped,” she said to Sheila. “Let’s go.” And to Torrey, “I’ve got the Jeep. Can we give you a lift anywhere?”
“Perfect,” Torrey said. “You can drop me at the turnoff to O’Sullivan’s barn. It’s on your way.” She gathered up the photographs that Sergeant Bryson and Ms. Plant had laid on the table after murmuring polite comments. She slid them into the envelope and got up.
It was a mist rather than a drizzle by the time the Jeep reached the turnoff to O’Sullivan’s barn. Standing in the dirt road, Torrey watched the Jeep disappear, mud splashing up around the wheels. Then she turned and walked up toward the barn.
The blue BMW was parked in its usual place. It was only two o’clock, but the day was dark. Lights shone from the high windows.
Torrey went to the BMW and opened the car door. Smell of perfume, tobacco, stale whiskey. In a holder attached to the dashboard was an empty glass. Baccarat. Wouldn’t you know! She had to smile. Carefully, between two fingers, Torrey lifted out the glass. “Once a thief, always a thief,” she whispered aloud, and made a face. She took a paper bag from the pocket of her raincoat and put the glass in the bag.
47
Oh, no! No! Inspector O’Hare stared at Ms. Torrey Tunet standing in front of his desk and taking an object from her shoulder bag and placing it on his desk … then reaching into the bag again and taking out another object, which she placed beside it. Then a third object. Oh, no! Yet here she was. Had he committed some sin in an earlier life to deserve her meddling again?
Ms. Tunet was in a red slicker and a close-fitting World War I leather pilot’s cap she must have found at a yard sale. It was three o’clock and the sudden noontime deluge had dwindled to a drizzle. She smiled at him. “Inspector.”
The fourth thing she took from her shoulder bag was a chocolate bar. She made an inquiring gesture as though to break it in half, and when O’Hare shook his head in refusal, she peeled back the silver paper and bit into the chocolate. She unbuckled the red raincoat and sat down in the chair beside his desk.
Inspector O’Hare set his jaw in his no mode. He folded his arms and swore to himself that this time, this time, whatever theory Ms. Torrey Tunet came up with, this time it would slide off him slick as oil. She’d get nowhere.
Nowhere. Because this time was different. He knew what he knew: Natalie Cameron had killed Raphael Ricard. He had two eyes. He didn’t need a third one in the middle of his forehead to confirm that fact.
Ms. Tunet said, “Inspector,” and she reached across and picked up one of the objects she’d laid on his desk and began to talk.
Twenty minutes later, Sergeant Bryson returned from the Harrington’s farm, having settled a fistfight between the seventy-eight-year-old Harrington twin brothers over which puppies in their bitch’s new litter would belong to which brother. He found Inspector O’Hare alone sitting at his desk, biting the inside of his cheek, and gazing at some things that lay on his desk.
Bryson said, “All settled, Inspector.” He felt good, pleased with himself. “After Henry got a black eye and Stevie lost a tooth. There were five pups, so who was to get the odd one? I felt like King Solomon.”
“Hmmm? King Solomon?” Inspector O’Hare gave a sudden bark of a laugh. “Which one did get it, Jimmy?”
“I did, sir. Cost me thirty pounds. When it’s weaned, I’ll pick it up. My mother’ll like it, she’s been wanting company.” Bryson took off his cap and rubbed his forehead and looked over at a packaged doughnut he’d left on his desk. “Wouldn’t mind a bit of tea, though a mite early.”
“Sergeant Bryson.”
Bryson felt suddenly alert. Something in the Inspector’s voice. “Sir?”
Inspector O’Hare said, “Never mind tea. I want you to take these things”—he gestured at the objects on his desk—“right now to Dublin Castle, forensics. I’ve already rung up Sanders. Depending on what he finds, I may be calling an informal meeting. If so, Friday morning at ten o’clock.”
48
“I swear,” Jessie said to Sean O’Boyle, “today’s a
false spring. That balmy!” Jessie was wearing only a light jumper over her white-aproned blue uniform. She was standing on the gravel on the curved drive in front of Sylvester Hall watching Sean O’Boyle trim the masses of rhododendrons beneath the long windows. She’d come out to gather up some of the cuttings of the shiny leaves. They’d look a treat in the brass pots in the kitchen.
It was Thursday morning, eleven o’clock. Sean, only half aware of Jessie, had already finished trimming the rhododendrons on the left side beneath the drawing room and breakfast room windows. Minutes ago, he’d begin to trim those on the left, beneath the library windows, which were open, and from which he could hear the murmur of voices. Ms. Tunet’s bicycle was on its stand on the gravel drive. It had been there at least twenty minutes.
“Jessie?” Ms. Cameron had come out and was standing at the top of the steps. “Jessie, will you please get Dakin for me. He’s in the coach house washing the Rover. Tell him I’m in the library and I’d like to see him.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Jessie went off toward the coach house, the gravel crunching under her feet.
Sean paused in his clipping and looked up to where Natalie still stood at the top of the steps. She had on a long velvety-looking brown skirt and a brown pullover and her face looked pale, so different from its usual warmth. At that moment, she put her fingertips to her temples, closed her eyes, and shook her head slowly from side to side. Then she opened her eyes, blew out a breath, and turned and went inside.
Sean just stood for a moment, shears in hand. It was terrible, Natalie’s face so thin these last days. In the greenhouse, even while he showed her what cuttings he was taking, and while she replanted one thing or another, or looked at him when he was explaining something about mixtures of soil, her hazel eyes had a transfixed look as though her gaze was frozen on something.